Restraint
by Chedea
Summary: Edward meets the personification of obsession when a girl stumbles on he and his family. With his self control challenged by a girl whose identity is a mystery, his family must decide what to do when their secret is revealed to a girl Edward can't ignore
1. Ruin

_AN: I know, I know, I have like three stories that aren't done yet that I should be finsihing. But this idea just sort of hit me. So I figured, what the hey, and wrote it. Tell me what you think._

* * *

"You promised, Edward," Alice warned. She was right, I had promised. But now I knew that I was going to have to break that promise. I was supposed to be the best man at her and Jasper's wedding tonight. It was going to be out in the courtyard of the estate we were staying in for the time being. Carlisle was going to give Alice away; Rosalie was going to be the maid of honor. Jasper had asked me to be the best man and of course I accepted. He and Alice were as much a part of our family as anyone else was.

"I know I did, Alice, and I am sorry. I don't want to ruin your wedding. But―"

She held up her hand. She knew. She had seen the vision, felt the same horror at watching me murder a young girl who had done nothing more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn't clear what she doing in the middle of the night, running through private property, but that didn't matter. She would be here, and when she was, if I remained nearby, she would not survive.

"I don't understand why it happened. It's been decades since I have killed a human. None of them have broken my restraint in all that time. What is it about her?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to figure out why in God's name I would be thrown into this _now_ of all times. This girl didn't deserve to die by my hand, but I didn't want to ruin one of Alice's happiest moments.

"I don't know. I only know what I saw, and you were privy to that as well. If I see anything else, I will show you. But please, Edward, for me, stay. You know what I see isn't written in stone."

She was begging. I could see by the look in her eyes she was desperate for me to stay. She wanted me to be a part of this.

"You're my bother, Edward. You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important to me."

She looked so innocent and young then, wistful. Suddenly a vision of herself in her wedding dress, grinning at me as she walked toward the altar where Jasper and I were already standing filled her mind. She knew how to use my own gift against me. I sighed.

"If she gets close, warn me. I will have to leave if she gets too near us. I wont take any risks with her life or the safety of our family, do you understand?" I asked. She nodded.

"Of course, Edward. I understand. Thank you for staying. It means a lot to me," she said in return. I nodded. I knew it did. That was the only reason I agreed to stay even though I knew it was possible I would make a mistake tonight that would end a girl's life. That and the fact that I knew my family would do whatever they could to keep me from harming her.

After a moment Alice left me alone in my room again, like I had been before she came to share the vision with me. I had been sitting and thinking, mostly about the composition I was working on for my piano. At first when she told me what she had seen I did not believe her. But then she had shown me, told me to focus on her thoughts as she remembered the vision she had received. I couldn't understand what I was seeing at first. It seemed out of focus, blurry, moving too fast. But then I understood. A girl, pretty, young, and running through our gardens. I saw myself there with that girl. It made me sick to watch as she died cradled against my chest, her eyes clenched shut against the pain and fear. Tears leaked down her pale cheeks in rivulets, dropping on me as I killed her.

I had control over my impulses. I knew the thirst that raged inside of me, the part of me I detested, the monster. But I could keep it at bay. I could force those urges down, restrain the thirst for the life's blood of the people who walked around me. What made her different, what was it that shattered my restraint?

I didn't care what it was the made her special, I wouldn't let her destroy the life we had built here. I would not add her to the list of people I had killed. I would not destroy her. The image of her dying in my arms was enough to make he shiver, to actually perform such a gruesome act would make me ill, even though I knew that vampires couldn't get sick.

Not too long after Alice left I went down to the main level of the house to find Carlisle. He had taken time off of work for the wedding. He and Esme were sitting in the kitchen, one of the most useless parts of our house. I took a deep, unnecessary breath. I needed to tell Carlisle about this possibility that Alice had seen. He needed to know that it could happen and what to do with me if that eventuality came into being.

"Carlisle," I said quietly. I felt ashamed already. I hadn't even done anything wrong yet and already I was guilt ridden. Even just the possibility that I could hurt some innocent girl made me feel the worst hate for what I was that I had felt in years.

Both he and Esme turned to me and looked expectantly, waiting for me to say something. I took another deep breath and rounded the island they were both sitting at.

"Alice had a vision of her wedding and some…unfortunate things occurring that you need to be aware of," I said slowly.

"Unfortunate things?" Esme inquired.

"There was a human girl. I…killed her. I don't know why or what she was even doing here in the middle of the night but…its what Alice saw. I told her I should go and avoid this altogether but she begged me to stay. So I will, only because it's her wedding. But if she does come here and gets too close, just as a precautionary measure will you please get her out? I am sure Emmett and Jasper can restrain me if it comes to that. But you are the one who can deal with a human most easily."

I didn't realize how fast I was talking until I had finally stopped. Both of my parents looked concerned. Carlisle's brow was furrowed in concentration.

"Edward, if that should come to pass I will do as you ask. But I hardly think that some girl simply running by us would tempt you so much as to kill her. Are you sure Alice saw her here tonight, simply passing through?"

I nodded. That much had been clear. I had been in my tuxedo, the only one I had that I only wore on occasions such as these. Her blood had stained the white shirt I wore under the jacket. Her pale skin had contrasted with the black suit so vividly in the moonlight. The more I thought about that vision, the more real it seemed. It could have been a memory instead of something that _could_ happen.

"Don't worry, Edward. I wont let you kill her," Carlisle assured me. I nodded, but still felt no better about it. He smiled and nodded at me, asserting the confidence he had in my self-control. I had once held the same confidence in myself. I was sure I would never kill another human again. Since the years I had rebelled against Carlisle's way of life I had vowed never to touch human blood again. I had succeeded in this goal since I had made the promise to myself.

I had watched too many people die at my hands already. The others I could at least attempt to justify using their crimes and prior horrible deeds. But this girl was innocent. She had done nothing. And even if she had it was neither my responsibility nor my place to judge her and exact vengeance for her misdeeds.

I stayed down with Esme and Carlisle talking for a while. We were joined by Jasper not too long after that. His thoughts were calm and collected. I thought for sure he would be nervous about the wedding that was taking place in three hours—midnight to be exact—but he seemed at ease. Emmett had been crawling out of his skin for almost a full week before his first wedding to Rosalie. The day they actually got married I refused to be in the house with him until the ceremony because his maddened, nervous thoughts were driving me crazy.

Alice was exactly as calm, but that was understandable. She already knew how everything was going to turn out. She didn't have to worry how her dress was going to look or if Jasper was going to run off on her at the altar. She would know about it long before anyone else did. Not that Jasper would ever leave her—he couldn't. Even without being able to hear the thoughts that ran through both of their minds I knew they were tied to each other in every way possible. Even though I met them both at the same time I felt more of a connection to Alice than Jasper. They were immediately welcomed into our family and settled into the roles of my other siblings without question. Because of the instant bond I felt with Alice I was glad she had found someone—however unorthodox their relationship might have began—who could love her as she deserved.

It was an hour before the ceremony was beginning when Alice screamed down to the rest of us.

"If you all are not dressed in the next ten minutes for my wedding you will be sorry!" she shouted. She was very serious. Jasper and I exchanged looks and then all four of us left the main floor to ascend to our bedrooms and change into our formal wear.

An hour later I was standing out at the altar with Jasper and Emmett on one side of me and Rose and Esme on the other. We were only waiting for Alice and Carlisle now. The Justice of the Peace was standing there as well, waiting to perform the ceremony. I could tell by his expression and his thoughts that he was absolutely stunned by the appearance of my family, especially Rosalie.

We turned at the sound of the approaching footfalls. Carlisle was escorting Alice, who seemed to float in her wedding dress. Her grace seemed amplified by her elation as she glided toward us, her eyes only on Jasper. He smiled at her, his face breaking out into the grin without thinking.

The wedding started as most weddings do. The vows were said, questions of objections raised. When no one spoke up Alice and Jasper were pronounced husband and wife, and a kiss between groom and bride was shared. We clapped for them and their newfound happiness in matrimony. The Justice of the Peace left us behind to celebrate without him.

And then Alice's eyes became far away. She was having a vision. She mouthed my name and the vision was suddenly in my mind again. The girl, running, near us, so close I was sure I would hear her any second. And then as if summoned I heard approaching footfalls. Heavy steps of this running girl approached us. I turned in the opposite direction to get away as fast as I could.

"It is too late," Alice whispered.

Then the wind blew, sending the scent of this innocent girl my way.

All my control, restraint, years of practice didn't mean a thing. The smell of her was ungodly, _unworldly_. There was nothing on the face of the planet that was more tempting than this girl. I hadn't even seen her yet. It didn't matter. I growled. I felt my body shift to turn toward hers, to take her down when she came into the courtyard from the masses of greenery that surrounded it. It wouldn't be long now.

"Edward, no!" Alice called. But her voice was far away and sounded muffled. Nothing mattered but this girl and her blood that I would taste soon enough. Now I could hear her heartbeat along with the steps she took as she ran. Everyone had stilled. In less than a second, everything changed.

The girl stumbled into the courtyard. I took less than an instant to assess her—dark wavy hair, shocked chocolate eyes, skin that looked as soft and sweet as it was pale and shining in the moonlight. I lunged at her, snapping and growling. Carlisle went after her as well, trying to keep me from getting to her. Emmett grabbed me from behind as I almost collided with her and Carlisle. The blatant fear on her face should have been enough to keep me from continuing to try and kill her.

It wasn't.

The fear only seemed to concentrate her scent. It made it stronger. It made me want her blood more than I already did. But Carlisle already had her in his arms and was taking her away. Emmett managed to hold me back even though I was yelling for him to let me go, struggling with all the strength I had in me.

As soon as she was gone her scent faded from the air. I stopped struggling. After a moment Emmett let me go. I brushed myself off and looked around to the rest of my family who remained behind.

I sank to my knees and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to control the shame and anger at myself that was building into a tidal wave inside my head. I looked up to Alice and Jasper.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, mortified that I had ruined their wedding, as I had feared I would. But Alice's eyes had gone far away again. When they refocused she smiled at me.

"Don't worry about a thing, Edward. Things will be just fine."


	2. Sparks

So I sort of forgot the disclaimer in the first chapter. So here you go. I own none of this. Its all Stephanie Meyer's work. Because she is amazing.

* * *

Alice assured me again that things were hardly as horribly spoiled as I thought they were. Eventually I had to accept her guarantees because it was her wedding. If she said things were fine I had no choice but to go along with her. 

"Let's go back inside now. It's going to rain soon and I do not want to get this dress wet," she said, heading in the direction of our large house. I looked up at the sky and saw not a single cloud hanging there. But if Alice said it was going to rain I believed her. The six of that remained outside where we had been for the ceremony followed her advice and went into the house. As soon as I crossed the threshold I felt the same uncontrollable urge to drink the blood of the girl rise inside of me. A growl was growing in my chest as Carlisle stepped into the foyer with a somber look in his eyes.

"Edward," he began. But he smelled like _her_. My eyes narrowed.

"Is she here?" I asked, barely able to mask the blood lust that coated my voice. He nodded. His mind flicked back to her. She was injured—her wrist was fractured—and exhausted. He had taken her back to the house to save her life, only to see she needed his assistance as a doctor not too long after. She had sat trembling as he introduced himself and offered to help her with her wrist. She nodded slightly, as though she were afraid to make any sudden movements.

Carlisle had soothed her with talking, as he had been known to do. The hum of his voice had calmed her nerves. But she was still quaking. Was it cold outside to her? She was only wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans; if it was cold she should have been wearing a jacket. Poor little thing was shaking like a leaf.

I shook my head, ridding it of the thoughts Carlisle was having about this girl. When I brought myself back to reality the presence of her scent invaded my senses again. What _was_ this? What sort of hell was this that tortured me? I knew I didn't want to kill anyone. I knew I didn't want to spill human blood, and that I was more than capable of controlling myself. But the smell of her pervaded every cell in my being. My body was _screaming_ to taste her. My every thought was invaded by a one that begged to have her, kill her, drink her dry. Her blood would be hot and sweet beyond reasoning. There would be nothing on earth that could compare to the taste of her.

"Carlisle, either she needs to go or I do. I cannot stay in this house if she is here. Her scent is unbelievable. I can't…I'll kill her," I said finally. I was afraid to admit that I was sure I would not be able to control myself. I didn't want to add to my already abounding guilt. I also did not want to disappoint Carlisle or the rest of the family. They were important to me.

"Edward, you almost killed her. She saw you attack her. She witnessed the presence of vampires. I don't know what we should do with her. Volturi law states that we must kill her, but I find that to be an extreme approach. If I have her word in the morning that she wont tell anyone what she has seen tonight I will bring her to the hospital. If she cannot guarantee me that, I do not know what my course of action will be."

I was trying to concentrate on his words. I managed to catch them all and understand their meaning. But my mind was also working on figuring out where she was. Her scent seemed strong, so she was obviously on the main floor of the house. Perhaps she was asleep on the couch in the living room. I looked at Carlisle and searched his thoughts. But he wasn't thinking about where she was sleeping. He was thinking about me.

"Perhaps if you think you will not be able to control yourself you should leave the house until we have come up with some sort of solution for the current predicament," he suggested gently. Of course he did not want me to leave, but he didn't want me to kill this girl either. I nodded. There were plenty of hotels I could stay in until he had figured out what to do with her.

"I will check into a hotel until this mess is sorted out," I said and then turned to go up to my room and pack a few things. It wasn't as though I needed somewhere to sleep but I wanted a place to shower and reside until I could return home. I ascended the stairs and went into my room. I changed out of the tuxedo I was wearing that was not stained with blood and put on casual clothes. I packed up a few things in a bag and went back downstairs. As I was about to go put my bag in my car I heard an unfamiliar voice.

"No, please don't trouble yourselves for me," it said. I could only imagine it was this girl. And even though I could smell her maddening scent and could feel the tug on my body to go capture her and taste her I was able to remain where I was and simply listen.

"It's no trouble dear, if you need anything, you just let me know. My name is Esme," my mother said sweetly. She was already mothering this girl. I could hear the smile in her voice from where I was standing.

_She's such a pretty little thing._

Esme's thoughts crossed my mind and I had to agree. Standing here, able to keep from attacking her I caught sight of her through Esme's mind. Her pale skin had gotten some color after being in the house. Her cheeks were a delightful color pink, contrasting with the light pallor of the rest of her face. Full soft lips formed words as she spoke and I found myself transfixed by them almost as her beautiful brown eyes transfixed me. They seemed impossibly deep and warm. And for that moment, even though I knew that I wanted to kill her more than I had ever wanted to kill before, more so even than when I was a newborn, I could appreciate that she was an exquisite human.

"Isabella. But please call me Bella," I heard her say. I had not been paying attention to the conversation, but Esme must have asked our little visitor for her name. _Bella_. What a pretty name. It suited her well. It was soft and delicate just like she was.

"I do have...one question," her tiny voice asked, growing surer of itself with each word she spoke.

"Of course," Esme replied without hesitation. I listened to hear the question this girl was going to ask after her hesitation. I waited for her thoughts to race across my mind as Esme's did with ease.

I heard nothing.

I concentrated harder on her mind. I knew that I wouldn't recognize her mind right away because I was unfamiliar with her. But if I was concentrating on her thoughts I should be able to hear them, unfamiliar or otherwise.

Still, I heard nothing. It was utterly infuriating. Why was it that this girl, who tempted me more than I thought it was possible to tempt someone, was the exception to my talent? That was hardly fair. But instead of focusing on my frustration with my lack of ability to hear her thoughts I listened instead to the words she was speaking.

"Well I…I don't really understand what happened. I mean one minute I was running through your yard—which I apologize for, by the way—and the next I am being whisked away by your husband. And that boy…he was…" her voice faded. But she was talking about me. I could hear the confusion and fear in her words. I must have terrified her beyond belief.

"Bella, my husband took you away from the courtyard to keep you safe. And that boy, my son, Edward, he…you don't have to worry about him," Esme assured her. Bella drew a breath, slow and easy and then let it out just as slow.

"Why did he try and attack me though?" she asked. This time her voice did not fade. She knew what had happened and she was not going to back down until she had an answer.

"I think perhaps that is a question you should ask Carlisle. He will be able to better explain to you what has happened tonight."

She sighed. In Esme's mind I saw her nod and then lie back on the couch she was resting on. So she _was_ in the living room. Her eyes closed and she looked asleep. Obviously she wasn't, but she looked so at peace, so innocent and…beautiful. I let out a sigh of my own. Esme left the living room and passed by me on her way to retrieve Carlisle. She gave me a knowing look on her way by, telling me she knew I had been listening to the conversation and continued on her way.

_Think what you want, Edward, but I don't believe you would hurt her._

I was surprised by Esme's thought as I heard it. Had she not seen me in the courtyard? Had she not witnessed as I tried to kill the poor girl who was resting in our house now? I had gone after her and the only reason I had not succeeded in killing her was because Carlisle had removed her from my presence and Emmett had held me back from going after them. She had survived because we knew that I was going to kill her if she came too close to us, not because I was able to keep from hurting her. Alice's vision had shown us that she could die at my hand.

But could it be possible that because I had seen that vision I would be determined not to harm her? I knew I didn't want to. I was ashamed that I had shown so little restraint in the courtyard. I didn't want to hurt her. I certainly didn't want to kill her. And even though it was hard I was able to stand here and inhale her mouthwatering scent without attacking her, maybe if I could see her, just for a moment, it would help steel my resolve.

I inhaled once more, tasting her scent on my tongue, feeling the venom pool in my mouth. But as tempted as I was, as much as part of me was struggling to be set free so it could have her, I pushed it back. I set down my bag by the door. I took one single step closer to the room she was in. Nothing changed. I could still feel that inhuman pull on every part of me that caused me shudder with desire for her blood. But I was able to keep it at bay. I took another step to her, and then another. Eventually I took enough steps to be at the doorway of the living room. I would have taken a deep breath to steady myself but that would only have made matters worse. Instead I held my breath as I watched the girl.

Her chest rose and fell in steady rhythm. Her heart was beating slow and steady as well, a calm, resting heart rate. I watched as she rested there, eyes closed, unaware of my presence. I leaned against the doorframe, waiting until Carlisle returned and I was to leave. Even though I could keep from killing her now there was no telling how long I could keep it up. Holding my breath, watching her as she pretended to sleep was hard enough. I could still remember her scent and I knew she would taste like nothing else. I wanted her _so badly_. I managed to control the beast, keeping it back with some unknown strength.

And then she sighed. And her eyes flicked open.

As soon as she saw me her heart started to pound in her chest at double its normal rate. Her breathing became shallow and uneven. Her cheeks flushed crimson. I felt the monster in me protesting. Here she was, alone and defenseless. It would be so easy to kill her and take what I wanted, what I _needed_ so much. She had no idea how hard it was to simply stand across a room from her without crossing it and drinking the alluring elixir that filled her body.

Her mouth opened like she was trying to say something, but no words escaped. Her perfect lips were parted in shock and an attempt to make sense of the situation, but there was no making sense of this. She did not know the temptation she was, just laying there. She knew something was wrong with us, or with me rather, because of my incredible reaction to her when she stumbled upon us at Alice's wedding. But of vampires I was sure she knew nothing. She would never suspect we were creatures of myth, thought to be nothing more than folklore and Hollywood monsters.

Most likely she suspected I was simply insane and had attacked her because I was deranged. Which was an understandable thought. It would make sense that she would assume that. So it would also make sense that she would fear me being so close to her and clearly insane.

Her eyes were caught with mine. I was unable to look away from them. I wanted to tear myself away from her, to separate myself from this trap that was ensnaring us both. But I couldn't. She had captured me with those eyes. Her scent meant nothing for a long moment—the temptation, the need to fill my mouth with her blood and satiate the craving she produced like no one else was nonexistent.

"Edward."

Carlisle spoke from behind me and broke the trance.

_What are you doing?_ His thoughts questioned me, as he would not aloud.

"Leaving. Call me when you have decided what you wish to do," I answered. He nodded.

"Take care, my son," he said. I nodded in reply.

I was able to leave the room now, the spell had been broken. She no longer held me captive with her stunned gaze. I left her behind, trying to ignore as her scent hit me with full force again. Somehow in that one moment it had ceased to matter but it was back now, and I could feel it pulling on me again.

I picked up my bag by the door as I walked outside. I realized as I got in my car I had never asked Alice what she had seen after Carlisle had taken Bella into the house. What had she meant when she said things were going to be just fine? I didn't like when she kept things like that to her self. I had a feeling I was going to find out what she had been talking about soon enough, but it still made me nervous.

As I pulled out of the driveway the rain began to pour down in sheets. She had been right about the rain, just like she was right about almost everything else. But we had managed to keep the vision of Bella's death from coming to pass. I knew her visions were based on the choices we were making and could change. We had seen that things did not always need to happen as she saw them. I had not killed her.

But what had she seen that would make her smile at me that way? Why would she tell me things were going to be fine if clearly things were going to be very complicated? Sometimes, as much as I loved Alice, she annoyed me. I hated how cryptic she was. I was sure that my ability to read the thoughts of everyone around me was irritating as well, but at least I did not hide the possibilities of someone's future from them.

Irritated and bent on finding out one of the many mysteries that was floating around me I decided that as soon as I got into the hotel room I was going to call her.

With the rain still falling in buckets I got out of the car and checked in with the front desk. The woman who was working thought it was strange that someone would be checking in at two in the morning but she didn't say anything. I had a tendency to persuade a person to do what I wanted, which was in this case, simply giving me a room without any objections or questions. She handed me a key to a room and I took it without any words, walking away from her and up the stairs. Once I put my things in the room I picked up the phone. I dialed home without thinking.

"Hello, Edward. I know what you are going to ask me, but I wont tell you. I am not going to ruin the surprise by filling you in. Just because I already know what will happen doesn't mean I have to tell you, you know."

"Alice, please, this is no time to play around. I just want to know what you saw," I said, still feeling annoyed. I heard her gentle, tinkling laughter on the other end of the line. I growled at her.

"Edward, you need to trust me."

"How can I trust you when you are hiding something from me?"

"You know, you are very lucky to have a sister that can see into the future. If she tells you everything will work out fine why can't you just leave it at that?"

"_Mary Alice_," I snapped.

"_Edward Anthony_," she retorted. "I am not going to tell you. I suggest you stop asking and driving yourself crazy. Now if you wait about five more minutes the rain will stop and you wont get drenched going to hunt."

With that the phone clicked. She hung up on me. I slammed the phone down, irate. I couldn't believe she was being like this! I deserved to know what she knew about my future, good and bad. I let out another low growl, frustrated and suddenly realizing I was thirsty. Being around Bella, the deliciously torturous being that she was, had made me thirsty beyond reason. I waited the five minutes and the rain did indeed clear up. As soon as it stoppped I slipped out the window.

I downed two deer, not having the energy to go very far and find bigger prey. It satisfied most of my thirst, though I knew part of it would never be sated unless I was able to drink form Bella, which I would never allow myself to do. I would not drink from her. I would not kill her or harm her in any way. I refused. I was not just an animal who could not control themselves. I might have been a monster, but I was also a man.

I thought of pretty little Bella while I sat in my room all alone. I wondered what Carlisle had said to her, and how she had taken it. I wondered if I had frightened her more by showing up where she was resting. I wondered what in God's name she had been doing running around at midnight by herself.

But mostly I wondered if I would ever see her again. She was a mystery, a puzzle I wanted to solve. Not only did she break my control but she was also immune to my gift. I didn't understand how one little girl could be such a conundrum. Who was she? A pretty girl all by herself in the middle of the night with a fractured wrist. Surely she had a home to be in, a family to be with? Why wasn't she in bed, sleeping away the last few nights of summer? She looked to be seventeen or eighteen, a senior in highschool at the youngest, perhaps even a freshman in college. School would be starting for her soon.

I had 'graduated' from the local highschool this past June. I had decided to 'take a year off from school' and stay wth the family. Alice and Jasper were both new to the family and had not attended school with us but Rose and Emmett had graduated the same time as I had. They were planning on going on a vacation in the winter, which would leave me with Jasper, Alice, Esme and Carlisle. Carlisle would of course continue to work at the hospital and I was sure that in a few months time Esme would have remodeled at least half the house. I was just unsure of what I wanted to do.

Perhaps that was why I was having such a hard time distracting myself from Bella. I really did not have much else to do at the moment, so the idea of unraveling a mystery was ever so tempting. But every time I thought of that I had to remind myself that there were other things about her that tempted me as well. Just the _memory_ of her scent made my throat burn with thirst. I swallowed down the excess venom in my mouth and breathed deep, dropping my head into my hands. The image of her face, shocked and lovely staring at me wordlessly surfaced in my mind again. I wondered what her face would look like if she were to smile. I was sure it would be enchanting.

I could not remember how I had managed to stand so near to her without killing her. In retrospect it was not the brightest idea. I could have harmed her before Carlisle came to see her. But I was glad I had done it now. That single moment when I had been able to ignore her sweet fragrance and simply focus on her had rewarded me with the photo of her in my mind, blushing and stunned, true, but sweet as well. She had bewitched me already. A single moment was all it had taken for her to work her magic on me. She had not even spoken to me.

It was then that I realized even though I might want to see her again I could not. Her blood tempted me. Her mystery tempted me. That lovely face tempted me. If she were to speak even a single word to me I would be lost. It would not be prudent for us to know each other. She could continue on with her life as a human being, untouched by my world except for this one brief incident and I could go on with my existence as I had been for decades. It was easier that way. It was better that way, no matter how fascinated I might have been by her. But I realized that those short moments had sparked more than fascination.

This was obsession.


	3. Beyond

It was a day and a half before I got a call from Carlisle. I had been crawling out of my skin. On one hand I was glad that I didn't have to endure the torture of her constant assault on my senses. On the other hand I couldn't stand not seeing her, being able to be prove through my senses that she was real. I knew I could not have simply imagined something so terrible and wonderful as her scent, but nothing about this seemed real. She seemed too much like a fantastic and terrifying dream. I knew I couldn't dream so perhaps she was a hallucination.

When Carlisle finally did call it was good and bad news.

"You can come home, Edward. Bella is…no longer with us."

The inflection in his voice along with his choice of words froze me instantly. She couldn't possibly be dead. I mean she could, she was human and it was possible for her to die. Had someone in my family killed her? If that was going to happen it seemed far more likely that I would have been the one to do it.

"What do you mean?" I asked without hesitation.

"She ran. I splinted her hand the first night before she went to sleep and we left her in the house last night to go hunt. We left Rosalie and Emmett with her but that was apparently not the best idea. She got out of the house. She's gone. We could track her if we wanted, of course, but she wasn't a prisoner here so there really isn't any reason."

So many things rushed through me in that moment. I was relieved I could come home and continue on with my normal life. I was curious as to what would make her want to run away from us though I suspected it had something to do with my attacking her.

But more than those two things was a concern for her. She ran away from us, though what she had been doing to end up with us in the first place was still a mystery. I knew I had promised myself that I would not involve myself with her no matter what her circumstances, to protect both my sanity and her life. But still I felt this troubling anxiety over the girl. What if she was all alone, out by herself with no one to care for her? What if she got hurt again?

"I'll be home shortly," I told Carlisle. I hung up the phone then and gathered my things, which were already packed. I had not bothered unpacking them in the first place. I checked out of the hotel, paid for my stay and drove home in silent contemplation.

Where did she go? Home? Back to her family? Did she even _have_ a family? It occurred to me then that I really _was_ obsessing over her. But that didn't stop the questions I had, or the feeling of urgency at wanting to know the answers. It wasn't healthy to fixate on her the way I was, but I couldn't help myself. Even when I tried not to think about her my thoughts betrayed me and spun right back around to her.

It infuriated me. How could she do this to me? She was a just a human girl, one that I didn't even know, but already I couldn't stop thinking about her, replaying her every breath and expression, hearing the words she spoke to Esme again and again in my head.

When I arrived back at my house I was met with a flurry of questions, most of them having to do with what had happened.

"Edward, we didn't get much of a chance to talk about what happened with Bella. I have to say I still don't completely understand why you attacked her," Carlisle said.

"Do you remember how hard it was to resist the call of human blood as a newborn?" I asked. The whole family was sitting around us then, listening to the conversation. I was sure they were just as curious about my lack of control as Carlisle was. Everyone nodded at this question but no one spoke.

"Imagine that feeling multiplied ten fold. The smell coming off her skin was like nothing I could have even imagined. Having her scent so near to me and _not_ killing her was the most difficult thing I have ever done."

"I think I know what you are talking about," Emmett said quietly. Thoughts ran through his mind suddenly of a woman. Her blood called to him more than anything else ever had, more than the call of blood had when he was freshly made.

He had killed her on the spot.

"Is that what you mean?" he asked me. I nodded. Their blood called to him, begged to be taken just as Bella's called to me. He knew this torture.

"How could you keep from killing her?" he inquired.

"You held me back, if you remember," I replied. He shook his head.

"That's not what I mean. I mean after, in the house when you were looking at her. How did you resist?"

"I don't know." It was true. I had no idea how I had managed it. It was idiotic of me to try. But I had succeeded somehow, watching her innocent breathing and then her stunned expression. Perhaps it was the innocence that had kept me from murdering her.

"How did she manage to run away?" I asked, curious as to how a human managed to escape a house of vampires. Emmett looked at Rose and then back at me. Thoughts of exactly what they had been doing when Bella had gotten away from the house. They had been wrapped up in each other—literally and figuratively—and had failed out notice Bella run out. I shuddered but proceeded.

"Do we have any idea where she might have gone?" I questioned. No one responded but their thoughts gave enough away. No one knew where she would go. All they knew was what she told them. Her name was Bella, she was eighteen years old, and the fracture she had on her wrist was from falling. Other than that she didn't offer up any information about herself or her past.

"Let it go, Edward. No one knows where she is. Even if we did, what would you do?" Rosalie said. I pondered the thought. What would I do if I knew where she was? I couldn't—I _wouldn't_—go see her. It would be a bad idea altogether, for me and for Bella. _If_ I knew where she was. But I didn't.

"Nothing. I wouldn't do anything. I just can't help but wonder what she was doing running through the woods all by herself in the middle of the night."

"Yes, I admit that is quite the mystery. She never did say why she was here, even though Esme asked her. She seemed reluctant to talk about herself. Did her thoughts reveal anything about her?"

It was Carlisle who asked the question and it was also my father I was afraid of disappointing most. How could I tell him that not only did she break my restraint and cause me to kill her but also seemed to be the one exception I had ever encountered to my gift? I didn't say anything for a moment, feeling embarrassment at my failings.

_Embarrassed?_

I heard Jasper's voice in my head as his brow furrowed. He was feeling my chagrin.

"Edward?" he inquired aloud. I sighed.

"I couldn't read her. I tried, but when I focused on her thoughts I didn't get anything. She was blank to me."

The looks I got and the thoughts that accompanied them were of unedited shock. They could not believe it. That only strengthened my mortification.

"Nothing?" Carlisle asked. I shook my head.

_Strange. First she tempts him and now he can't hear her thoughts. Seems like quite the coincidence to me…_

Those thoughts belonged to Alice whose smug grin held a look of knowing. I glowered at her. She was so proud of herself for knowing something I did not. She only laughed at my attempts to be intimidating.

"Calm down, Edward," she said playfully. I snarled. Carlisle's hand closed over my shoulder. He looked at me and smiled. He was trying to reassure me with that expression. And on some level I was reassured. Carlisle was my father, my mentor, one person I could trust and confide in no matter what I did. Even after I left him to pursue other ways of life when I returned he welcomed me home with open arms. Was he disappointed in me now because I had such trouble with this one little human girl? Would he understand if I told him that I needed to know about her, even from a distance?

As if he was sensing my unease his expression changed.

_Would you like to go for a hunt?_

His thoughts crossed my mind swiftly. I nodded. When we walked out of the house in silence no one seemed surprised. As soon as we were out of the house we started off running. As soon as we were far enough away we both stopped by mutual understanding.

In his mind was a reflection of me, his son, in need not of a friend or a counselor, but of his father. My eyes were like pitch and the shadows beneath them seemed more prominent than ever before. I felt more thirst since inhaling Bella's scent than I ever had. I hunted frequently, four times in the past two days, knowing a mere memory could provoke thirst at a moment's notice. That ever present need was mirrored in my appearance. I seemed almost sickly, if a vampire could get sick.

"What is it that troubles you so, Edward?" he inquired without another second's pause. I opened my mouth to speak and then stopped for a long moment. How to phrase this admission? How was I supposed to put into words the fixation on this girl, this mania caused by a tiny little human?

"This girl. At first it was her unbelievable scent that distressed me. Then it was her immunity to my talent that confused and irritated me. But the more I think of her—and I assure you hardly a minute passes when I don't—she seems stranger and more perplexing. Nothing about her makes sense. Why was she out on our property, which is separated from the rest of the town by at least a mile, in the middle of the night? Did she really fall and fracture her wrist or did someone harm her? Who _is_ she? Where did she come from? She wasn't in the local high school, that I can promise you. If she were, you would have heard of the torture I was forced to endure daily by the fragrance coming off her skin.

"I simply don't understand any of this, Carlisle. I am sure you understand why that vexes me. This girl that has such…_power_ over me is a mystery, and now she is gone. It would be dangerous for me to attempt to solve her, but now I cant even try because she has disappeared. And all my thoughts of her only lead me to wondering why it is I cannot stop my mind from wandering back to her face or her scent or her voice. I want to make this obsession to end, Carlisle, but I don't know how."

He watched me for a long moment. His eyes were ocher but enigmatic just the same. I could have read his thoughts and attempted to hear what his initial reaction to my confession was but I waited.

I was prepared for him to sigh and disapprove. I was prepared for him to discuss his disappointment in my lack of impulse control or tell me it was unhealthy to preoccupy on a person such as I was.

He smiled.

"Edward, I am sure that you are familiar with the term 'love at first sight', are you not?" he inquired. I looked back at him without speaking. I was stunned. _Love_? He thought this was love? It most certainly was _not_. This was an unhealthy neurosis on a girl that I had seen for only seconds at a time, half of them spent trying to kill her, the other half battling the demon inside of me that begged to take her life. That was not love.

"Carlisle, I don't understand. Of course I have heard of love at first sight, but this could not possible be love. There is nothing even slightly resembling love in this equation, only Bella, her blood and I. How could that ever even be confused as love?" I asked. I was still incredulous. Carlisle was an incredibly intelligent man. I would go so far as to even call him genius. What he was saying now made no sense whatsoever, which was almost as disconcerting as my obsession with Bella.

"Edward, you cannot love someone after you first see them. It does not happen that way. But for those that claim to have experienced it, it starts with a simple single moment of intrigue. Something about that person captures you beyond reasoning and belief, beyond logic and rationality. When I saw Esme it was something about her eyes. There was such love in them, even then. I could do nothing but care for her, love her completely. It did not start as the love I feel for her now, only with a moment when nothing else seemed to be relevant but that she was looking at me and I at her and we alone mattered.

"As far as your siblings have told me it was much the same with them. Rosalie and Emmett met under circumstances that would break most vampire's control. But that one single moment between them when she saw something in him changed the course of both their lives. The same can be said of Jasper and Alice, who's first meeting was a strange one to say the least, but caused them both to belong to each other in ways most people can only imagine.

"If you want my honest opinion, I believe that the few moments you have shared with this Bella have been so for you. That you could stand so close to her when you describe your need for her blood as physically painful shows that you were able to ignore the world and everything in it for her alone. Your mind cannot help but wander back to her because she has captured you, ensnared your heart and soul before you even knew it was happening. I am sure she knew nothing of this as well, these moments are never intentional."

I shook my head. This could not be true. I had tried to kill her. I still _wanted_ to kill her. Part of me, the killer, the hunter, was wondering why we were not searching for her now, tracking her down and draining every single drop of blood from her body. If only to ease the burn in my throat and the ache that seemed to linger inside of me ever since meeting her. How could he think that preoccupation could be anything more than that—an unhealthy fascination?

"When you think of her now, what comes to your mind first?" he asked. I thought her name only once and in my mind jumped the first moment I had seen her. Her face was shining and pale in the moonlight, her hair swaying about her body as she came to a sudden halt at seeing people, the complete and utter shock in her expression as she noticed us gathered around, Alice in her wedding dress and the rest of us in our formals. Lovely. Indescribable. She was just a human girl but she seemed so incredible that words did not fit around her. Even Rosalie did not compare, beautiful as she was. Because it wasn't just her beauty that struck me, though that was hard to miss. There was something around her, an aura almost, that seemed to coax some part of me to sudden life.

Carlisle smiled at me again as though in victory. If her blood had been the first thing I thought of when I thought of Bella I could write it off as being enthralled by her blood and its unique call to me. But it was not what I thought of first.

"Carlisle…" I began. He held up his hand to stop my words.

"Say no more, Edward. No more explanations need to pass between us. I think we have reached an understanding on the matter of Bella. Do what you think is right, whatever that may be. I will support you no matter what your choice."

What choice did I have when it came to Bella? She was gone. And even if she weren't it would not be wise of me to try and interact with her. I had already decided this. So why did I want to find her, to know her, see her face, hear her voice, bear the torment of her appallingly tempting scent for the chance to do these things? None of this made sense. Nothing seemed to follow any logical thought process, no matter how I looked at it. Carlisle's words echoed in my mind. _Beyond reasoning and belief, beyond logic and rationality._

There was thing for sure about this situation, no matter what I chose to call this newfound enthrallment there was nothing reasonable, believable, logical or rational about it. But then again, the same could be said of the way Bella's blood called to me or her ability to avoid my gift. Nothing about this girl fit into those adjectives.

Before I could voice my skepticism any more about Carlisle's theory the scent of a heard of deer caught my senses. The thirst that had been sparked by the mere mention of her enticing smell raged.

We hunted silently and ran back to the house, finding conversation to be unnecessary. I still refused to believe I could possibly love Bella. She was a human girl. We had nothing in common. There was nothing equal between us. She was of a far higher caliber than I. She was human. I was a monster who had stolen lives and wished to take hers. She could never be mine in any way other than to satisfy my thirst, because I would never be able to stop wanting to drink her blood.

But that craving did not nullify the others, the ones that wanted, _needed_ to know where she was, if she was okay, being cared for properly. How could I ignore such a call?

If I could just find her and know that she was all right I would be satisfied. Just to find out where she was and know that she was not all alone and injured and frightened and shaking like she had been…

No. I certainly could not do that. I had been strong enough to keep away from her once, there was no guarantee I would be able to do it again. How could I be so careless with her life? This was not a joke; it was not something that could be laughed off. She was an innocent girl who had done nothing to deserve death, least of all by the hands of a monster such as myself. I could not risk her life simply because I was curious.

But what if she needed me? What if she was in trouble and no one knew it? Had she been running from somewhere or someone the night she came upon us? If she was, did she need help?

I laughed inwardly at myself. Even if she did need help, I—the man who tried to attack and kill her—was the last person she would want help _from_. She would most likely run screaming in the other direction if she even saw me. I was the furthest thing from help she could get.

But I had to know. I _needed_ to know. If only to prove Carlisle wrong. This was not love, neither could it ever be. I would see her once more to make sure she was okay and to quash this obsession. I would end it. This was no way to live. I could not ruminate on her constantly any longer.

I would observe her from afar. I would not approach her. I would not get close enough for her to notice me. But I had to find her. I was never much of a tracker, but I figured that a scent as strong as Bella's would not stay hidden to me for long. Jasper was experienced as a tracker and I could ask for his assistance if I became desperate. But for the time being I would need to keep my family in the dark about my plans.

Emmett understood the draw of her blood but I was sure that none of them could comprehend the other way she captivated me. I would explain it to them later after I had done what I set out to do. Only then would my mind be at peace enough to tell them what was happening to me, pulling me down deeper each minute I spent without knowing.

As we reached our front door I turned to Carlisle. As soon as I opened my mouth he smiled. Then he nodded. From his pocket he retrieved the keys to my car and handed them to me.

"I had a feeling you might need these," he told me.

"Did Alice tell you? I asked. He shook his head.

"No, I figured that one out all on my own. Now go before Esme comes out and we have to explain where you are going."

I smiled back at my father, the one who always understood.

And I set out to find the girl who embodied the worst of my demons and the most of my strength.


	4. Stay

I just wanted to tell you guys that **Loyalty and Love**, probably my most well known story **won the Fanfiction of the Week award on the Twilight Awards Website!** So yay me, I just wanted to share that happiness.

Onward...

* * *

Finding Bella was easier than I thought it would be. The first thing I did was go into the town closest to our house. I was hoping that I would pick up her scent and be able to follow it to wherever she was. I parked my car at a municipal lot and began the search on foot. It would be easier to move quickly if the vehicle didn't inhibit me. At first I wasn't able to smell her at all and I was worried she had gotten too far away for me to track her by scent alone. But I kept going through the town, taking all the back streets and darkened alleys.

Just when I began to get disheartened I caught a slight trace of an aroma that caused a fire to ignite in my throat. There was no question that it was Bella. Nothing else in the world affected me so drastically. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wanting to draw that scent into me and determine where it was coming from. When I was able to discern a direction I followed the scent, walking at a human pace. It gradually grew stronger, increasing the screaming in my mind to kill the source of the scent but also my excitement. I had found her, this conundrum that had inundated my mind for days now. One look, just to be sure she was okay. That was all I needed.

As I continued to follow her scent I began to hear voices, low human talking. Their words were unimportant as it was not Bella that was speaking. If her voice were to sound I would pay rapt attention to every syllable she spoke, but only because I would want to hear her if she gave away any information as to why she was out near my house. The stronger her scent became the closer the voices were. There was one male voice, belonging to a 'Jack' and a female voice belonging to a 'Becky'. The louder their voices became the easier it was to pick up their minds. Becky was thinking about Jack. But Jack was thinking about the other woman with them.

He was thinking about Bella.

I saw her face in his mind, her features turned into a smile. I had been right about one thing, that expression was indeed enchanting. Then I head the sound of laughter—Bella's laughter. Jack must have said something funny. It might have been the most beautiful sound I had ever had the privilege to hear. The sound seemed to echo inside my mind, playing over and over. I smiled.

When I rounded the corner I was just behind I saw them sitting inside the restaurant that was stationed right on the end of the block. There by the front window sat a girl who looked about eighteen, a boy who looked a little older, perhaps twenty at the oldest, and Bella. Her wrist was still splinted and was resting on her lap as she drank something with her other hand. She was listening to the conversation back and forth between Jack and Becky but didn't look as though she was paying much attention. Of course I could not know that for sure because I could not hear her thoughts. The thoughts I _could_ hear however amused me beyond belief.

Jack was focusing on Bella; trying to make her laugh, elicit any sort of positive reaction from her. He had been trying to get a date with her since their sophomore year in high school. Now they were just about to enter their freshman year of college and still he had not managed to attract that sort of attention. Still, though, he was not about to give up. Bella was his golden girl, his ideal. While he was singing her praises in his mind Becky was busy laughing at Jack. She knew that Bella had absolutely no interest in him and never would. But she also knew that no matter what he would always want her. Bella had confessed that she didn't think of Jack as anything other than a friend and even a brother on occasion. But to Jack even that was encouragement. Becky found his obvious attraction to her and his outright flirting tactics to be hilarious, though she would never tell him that.

From across the street I watched this mini drama take place. Friends sitting together talking and drinking. The waitress came over to their table and delivered the check, which Jack paid, showing that he had at least some semblance of a gentleman in him. Bella and Becky stood up as Jack grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. The three of them walked out together and then split up as soon as they had said their goodbyes. Becky and Jack walked in the same direction because their apartments were in the same building. Bella walked off alone.

Hugging her arms to her body against the air that beginning to take on a chill at this time of night she walked toward me as I sat in the shadows. She would not know I was here. In fact even if she sensed my presence her instincts would cause her to avoid me at all costs. A natural survival instinct, a sense of self-preservation. As she drew closer to me her scent strengthened. I fought the beast in me again as I drew breath and tasted her fragrance on my tongue. Sweet, mouth watering, delectable. Without knowing exactly what I was doing I took a step to follow her as she walked past me on the other side of the street.

Silently my feet fell on the pavement and pursued this girl. The monster in me roared, but I ignored it. I watched the way her slight hips swayed as she walked down the street, oblivious she was being watched. She continued on this way for a few minutes, walking about two blocks.

Suddenly without warning she stopped. Her whole body turned as if she was sure there was someone behind her. When she was met with no one she continued to look around the area that directly surrounded her. Her eyes stopped on where I was standing and my breath froze. Surely she could not see me? I was completely in shadow, hidden in the pitch black provided by the building standing next to me. Still her eyes remained on me, as though she could see I was standing there looking back at her. Eventually she rolled her eyes and continued walking.

"Get a grip, Bella, there is no one following you," she muttered to herself. I smiled inwardly. She had better instincts than I thought. She had somehow sensed my presence even though I had done nothing to alert her senses of my being near to her. Good for her.

She continued her walk until she reached a house. She paused at the door; unlocking it with a key she pulled out from her pocket. I watched as she looked over her shoulder into the night. I looked back, wanting to actually be able to see into her face, to look into her eyes and know who she was. She sighed again and went inside, closing the door behind her and locking it from the click I heard.

That was all I needed. She had a home. She wasn't all alone in the world without a place to sleep or people to care for her. So why did I still want to follow her?

Without a second thought I went over to the side of her house, sneaking through her yard. A light flicked on in the back of the house and I nimbly climbed up a tree to see her. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, biting her lip, looking lost in thought. Before she could do anything else a phone rang. She edged over on her bed and picked up a receiver that sat on a night table.

"Hello…hi mom. Yes, I'm fine, how are you?"

Her voice sounded in her little bedroom and I reveled in the sound. A conversation continued with her mother. She didn't talk much, but when she did, it revealed plenty about her. She was a caretaker, the one who was the adult in the parent-child relationship with her mother. Her father had died a few months before and had given her the house in his will, along with all his money. Her parents were divorced.

She didn't stay on the phone long. After a half an hour she hung up with her mother after telling her she loved her and that they would speak again soon. When she put the phone down she put her head in her hands and drew a deep breath. With that steadying maneuver she got up and began pulling off her clothes. I shielded my eyes. As much as I might have wanted to know what lied beneath her clothes I was not a pervert. I was not going to peep on her naked.

Luckily with my improved sense of hearing I could tell when she had taken things from the drawers and put them on. I peeked once into the window through squinted eyes to make sure that she was indeed dressed as she flipped off her lights. The dark did not affect my ability to see her though. She settled under the covers of her bed and lay there with her eyes open. For a long time she lay awake. About an hour later she fell asleep.

Against my better judgment and without thinking I hopped down from my tree and paced over to the side of her house. I took another deep breath. Her scent swirled into my nostrils and though my throat burned and I wanted to drink her blood it was not unbearable. I crouched and sprang up, in through her window. I landed on my feet noiselessly.

Bella lay there undisturbed, still asleep. I watched her for a few minutes, her calm, quiet sleep looking peaceful. And then she mumbled. She turned over onto her side, facing away from me and muttered again, her words completely unintelligible. Then she rolled again, returning to her back.

"No," she said quite clearly. I thought she was awake. I continued to watch her without moving but she mumbled again before turning on her side again.

"Don't…please don't leave me alone."

I gazed upon this girl, watching her as she slept. Why had she just said those words? What was she dreaming that would make her say something like that? She sighed and then I smelled salt. Tears were glistening on her cheeks, running down to the nape of her neck. Why was she crying?

"Oh sweet Bella, what troubles you?" I whispered as I knelt down beside her bed. My hands acted of their own volition as my fingers reached up and wiped away a stray tear as it ran down her face. Her lips trembled as she continued to cry.

"Don't go," she whispered.

How could I refuse her?

Even though I knew she had no idea what she was saying or to who, I still could not fight her request. I sat on her floor, listening to her soft breathing and watching as her eyes twitched in REM sleep. Every once in a while she would utter more words, some of them I could understand and some of them I did not. None of them meant much of anything. Once she said, "If you don't put that down, you will be in big trouble" and I had to restrain my laughter.

As the sun rose I realized that I had to leave. Soon Bella would awaken and I could not stay and let her find me here on her floor. I stood and took one last lingering look at this girl I had spent the night with, however unknowing she might have been about the arrangement. With the sun coming through the open window she seemed to glow. There was something about her, something that words could not describe. And the tracks of her tears that had continued to spill almost the whole night through were visible on her face, reminding me that even as I watched her I didn't know her or what troubled her. But I desperately wanted to know her. I wanted to know her troubles and what I could do ease her hurt, the kind of hurt that made her cry in her sleep and beg in her dreams not to be alone.

With reluctance I leapt from her window. As I ran back to my car I thought of nothing but the girl I had just left. Would she ever know how I watched her, wiped her tears and guarded her sleep? I sat in my car for a long moment with the key in the ignition. I had managed to sit in her room, by her bed with her sleeping and not hurt her. She had been so defenseless, so open to attack but I had kept myself from doing the one thing I had wanted most to do.

But the more I thought of it, was taking her blood really what I wanted most to do? Watching as she cried, even in her sleep, I had wanted something more than her blood. Another moment had passed where the craving, the need, seemed to vanish. I simply wanted her. I wanted to hold her, to be with her, to stop her tears any way I could, no matter what it took. I wanted to heal her. I wanted…

I wanted to make her happy more than anything else. I wanted the chance. Was this what Carlisle had meant when he told me she had captured my heart and soul without knowing it? I still refused to believe that he could be right about this being love. But she certainly had gotten a hold of me and whether she knew it or not, she was not letting go.

I drove home in silence. I had the feeling when I got home there would be things to answer for. There would be questions from every member of the family, wondering where I had been and what I had been doing that I couldn't tell them about. That was unless Alice had told them where I was. I was sure she knew about this by now.

I pulled down our long driveway and before I even parked the car I heard questions. Along the several 'where was he?" and 'why didn't he just tell us where he was going?' was Carlisle's inquiry.

_Did you find her?_

When I got into the house the entire family was sitting and waiting for me, their thoughts running through my mind at high speeds.

"Edward, would you mind telling us where you ran off to without so much as a word?" Esme inquired. Her tone and thoughts were less accusatory and more worried and wondering. She was like my mother. I had left and not told her where I was going. She had been worried sick that something was wrong.

"I'm sorry, Esme, I should have told you I was leaving," I replied. She smiled at my apology and nodded for me to continue. She still wanted to know where I had been. So did everyone else, save for Carlisle, and Alice.

_Are you going to tell them?_

Alice's thoughts passed through my mind. She was smiling at me, a genuine smile, not the teasing one I was expecting. I sighed.

_You smell like her, Edward._

"I went to find her, find Bella. I just wanted to make sure that she wasn't alone and injured somewhere with nowhere to go. But she is okay; she has a house and friends and she is going to college when it starts up in the fall."

"Why?" Emmett asked. I shrugged.

"Perhaps she wishes to further her education, Emmett."

"That's not what I meant, you idiot. I mean why did you go looking for her? She wasn't really our concern. If she needed our help she should have stayed. And besides you know how dangerous that was. What if you had killed her?"

I inwardly cringed. Again I was flooded with embarrassment. I could not tell them that I could hardly go a single minute without her crossing my mind. That was something no one but Carlisle would ever need to know.

"I was just curious. Here was this girl who stumbled upon on us in the middle of the night and was injured, who not only happened to be the exception to my talent, but also whose blood screamed for me every time I caught wind of her scent. Needless to say I was a tiny bit inquisitive. I wanted to know who she was, if only for my peace of mind. Now I know. She didn't know I saw her; she had no idea I was there. Everything is fine."

I received questioning looks from most of the family, all still wonder why I couldn't just leave her alone. She was a human girl whose identity and circumstances may have been a mystery but that was all. It was not nearly as intriguing as I thought it was.

'A single moment of intrigue', was that what Carlisle had said? But again I could hardly confess that to them. It wasn't as if I could try and compare the moment they met each other to the few moments I had shared with Bella, mostly because I wasn't in love with her and thusly the moments were of completely different caliber.

"Besides," Carlisle interjected, "it was in our best interest to know if she was going about telling everyone she met about the strange family that lives in the middle of the woods. To your knowledge has she commented about our existence to anyone?"

I shook my head. I was sure if she had told her friends that she had run into us, strange occurrences and all, they would have been talking about it, and if not at the very least they would have been thinking about it. But there was nothing about in their minds or their words. I could only assume she had kept it to herself. It was a wise decision. If she were to tell people about us and something akin to the media were to pick up the story there would be damage control by the Volturi, which would lead to the deaths of several people, Bella included.

"That doesn't mean she wont, it just means she hasn't yet. What if she decides to share the story with someone and exposes us?" Rosalie asked. This time it was Alice that spoke up.

"If she does anything that would put us in jeopardy I would see it before she did. Her futures are a little harder to read, they aren't always as clear as ours are, but in this case her decisions would have a direct impact on us so I would be able to tell long before anything disastrous was to occur. And besides, if she hasn't said anything yet, I don't think she will. Who would believe her about superhuman creatures anyway?"

This caused a murmur of assent. It was rare for a human to accept the existence of anything superhuman—vampires or otherwise—even when proof was put directly in front of their face. _If_ Bella believed us to be something more than human she would be the exception to the norm. Other people who had not witnessed or experienced what she had would be hesitant to put any real stock in her claims. She didn't seem idiotic enough to think other people would really believe her if she told them about us.

"What did you tell her about us, Carlisle?" I inquired of my father. She had asked Esme about my behavior before I left and he had arrived to answer her questions just as I was going.

"I told her some version of the truth," he replied, grinning. I quirked an eyebrow.

"She asked why you had attacked her. At that point I was not one hundred percent sure myself, and I could not tell her about my suspicions either, so I simply told her an adaptation of reality. I told her that our family was different from other people. I told her that we behaved differently from other people, that our reactions to things were far more immediate and intense than those of other people. That you tried to attack her only meant that you felt drawn to her and reacted accordingly. I made it seem like a compliment rather than a near death experience."

How he twisted the truth. Nothing he said was a lie. He had been truthful with every phrase he crafted. I could almost hear the reassuring tone his voice would have taken on as he spoke to her. Nothing was wrong, it just wasn't complete. We were different from other people, in the way that we weren't really _people_ at all. We did behave differently, because our senses were amplified beyond measure, we were faster, stronger and nearly indestructible. Our reactions were based off these enhanced senses and abilities.

Carlisle was truly a master. He had managed to explain things in a way that would not frighten her as revealing the truth would have, and yet placated her fears and inquiries.

"How did she take it?" I asked, still curious. I was not here to witness her reactions so I had to ask.

"She seemed at peace with the explanation, though of course that is simply an assumption. Jasper said she seemed calm; at least he wasn't empathetically receiving any nervousness or fear. If anything he said she seemed relieved. That was why I was so surprised that she ran away. If she wasn't afraid I don't know why she left so abruptly. Unless someone did something to scare her."

With that last remark he looked over to Emmett and Rosalie. Emmett stared at the floor. Rose looked right back at him. Emmett was embarrassed that he had let Bella get away and had not noticed that she was running. Rosalie didn't care as long as it meant our identities were safe.

"I don't think so. I think she was just tired of being here. She felt trapped. There was hostility rolling off of her before we left. I know I should have mentioned it, but I figured it was just because Emmett was bugging her," Jasper confessed.

"I was not bugging her!" Emmett shouted.

"Emmett, you sat there for an hour trying to see how red you could make her blush. I thought she was going to pass out from all the blood rushing to her face."

In Emmett's mind I could see him sitting in the living room with Bella, talking to her about things, trying to make her cheeks turn that lovely scarlet color. Apparently he found it amusing.

"She was such a funny little human. And her face looked ridiculous when it turned that color," he confessed. I laughed a little. She was a funny little human. Funny, intriguing, mysterious, beautiful and so sad. I wondered again what was it that made her so sad, that caused her to cry out that way in her sleep. I would never know. There was no reason to go find her again. There was no possible excuse for seeing her again. I had seen what I needed to see. I had figured out that she was doing just fine and was not completely alone. There was nothing left to consider.

After that the discussion dissolved into inanity. We talked about pointless, useless topics that didn't mean a thing. Easy, flowing banter between us filled the room and our family was once again at peace and whole. Alice and Jasper were supposed to go on their honeymoon but apparently Alice had decided she would rather wait and go another time. She hadn't told anyone why, except perhaps Jasper, but he wasn't telling. Neither were her thoughts revealing her motives. It wasn't as though it particularly mattered; I just wasn't fond of her increasing mystery these days. She was becoming more secretive and cryptic than I liked.

It was after a long silence that our family dispersed to do things separately. Carlisle had to go back to work at the hospital. Esme was determined to find a furniture arrangement in her bedroom that she liked, even though she had been trying without success for the past two days. Emmett was going to join Rosalie in their bedroom for something that I chose not to look into. Jasper was already reading a book and Alice looked at me and smiled as I stood up to go hunt.

"I'll come," she said pleasantly. She kissed Jasper's cheek before following my steps toward the door. I sighed. I had wanted a few minutes to myself to think about how to go forward from here. I would not turn Alice away, but I had the feeling I would not get to do much internal musings on this short hunting trip.

We ran in silence into the deepness of the woods, searching out prey. I could have gone deeper and looked for something bigger that offered more of a challenge, but I wasn't up for it. I simply wanted to sate the immediate thirst. Spending the whole night with Bella had been easier than I thought it would be. There were moments when I had to turn away or take a deep gasping breath out of the window to clear my head of her scent. But the longer I stayed near her, the less it hurt me to breath her scent. My throat still burned, my body still ached for her delicious blood, but I found self-control a little easier every minute that ticked by.

After finding something to satiate my hunger I was about to start running back to the house when Alice caught my arm.

"Let's walk," she suggested. I shrugged and we walked back. It was faster than human paced walking, but still seemed unnecessarily slow. After a few silent moments I sighed again.

"Alice, would you please tell me what you came to tell me?" I asked, quite impatient.

"You're wrong, you know," she said softly.

"Wrong about what?"

"To assume that she would run screaming from you if she ever saw you again. It's actually quite to the contrary. She finds you fascinating. Terrifying? A little, but not enough to keep her from figuring you out. Which is, as I am coming to understand, similar to how you feel about her, correct?"

I balked. How could she now such things, not only about Bella, but also about me?

"Alice I don't know what you have seen but―"

"Oh Edward, it wasn't just what I saw. Whenever someone brought up your name her heart would start pounding loud in her chest and her face turned that delightful color that Emmett finds so entertaining. Not to mention the fact that Jasper said that he could feel a sort of…longing in her when someone mentioned you.

"And as for you, I don't know how stupid you think we are, but there was more than curiosity behind that visit you made to her bedroom. Yes, that's right, I saw that. The others might have wondered how if you simply followed her from afar you were able to be so drenched in her scent, but no one will ask. But the truth is, even though you found out what you set out to find, you couldn't just leave her, could you? Not after she asked you to stay."

"She didn't ask me to stay, Alice. She was talking in her sleep. She had no idea what she was saying," I replied automatically. I was processing the information I was given, still trying to work out how everything was going to fit together. How could I respond to any of that?

"You were going to stay, you know," she stated. My brow furrowed. I was going to _what_?

"For a while I was getting visions of her waking up and finding you there beside her bed, watching her sleep. You were going to stay. In the end you changed your mind but for a while, you were going to stay. It would have scared her, but she would have thought she was dreaming. She almost didn't believe you were real the first time she saw you, it would only to stand to reason you would have been fantasy then. She would have reached out and touched your face…"

Her eyes became far away again, as though she was having a vision, but I knew she was only remembering one. I let it slide into my mind as Alice intended it to and watched as the scene unfolded.

Bella's face was shocked. She couldn't believe I was here. She didn't think I was real.

"Dreaming," she muttered as she sat up, still staring at me. Her trembling hand reached up in my direction. She was shaking as her fingertips brushed my cheek. She recoiled instantly. I _was_ real. Her mouth opened to say something and from there the vision faded.

"That was the last vision I had before you changed your mind. After that you just decided to leave," she said. I nodded. I was too awed to speak just yet. She would have touched me. It would have been out of curiosity, to prove to herself that I could not possibly be real, but she would have done it just the same. I could not even begin to imagine that. For one, the nearness of her, the sheer solid force her scent would have with her that close would be enough to knock me over. And yet the feel of her skin would be like warm silk. It would be like nothing else. The texture too unique for words, the warmth like a thousand suns, wonderfully burning me.

I wished I had stayed, if only for that one shocked touch. I would gladly have dealt with the repercussions of that choice for the reward of a single second of contact with her. It was not every day that an angel condescended to touch a demon. And now it would not happen. Now things were all different, there would never be another moment for that to occur. I had missed my chance.

"Its not too late you know," Alice told me. I looked over at her.

"If you find her now she wouldn't turn you away. Perhaps apologize for your earlier behavior, bring her flowers. All women like flowers. I think a black rose would be appropriate in this instance."

She grinned at me.

"Are you certain?" I asked, still unsure if this was the best way to proceed. She nodded.

_Take a risk for once, Edward. I promise, things wont go as horribly as you always assume they will._

I sighed and then turned and ran. I went past the house, making my way toward town. It was noon, and as cloudy of a day as any of us could hope for. No risk of exposure. I laughed when I thought back to what Alice had told me to do. Apologize and give her flowers, black roses to be exact.

If she hadn't suggested them specifically I would not have suspected that she knew that they were supposed to symbolize, but she must have because she told me they would be 'appropriate'. I didn't know if the local florist would carry them, but if they did I was sure that would be the correct choice of flower if I were to give some to Bella.

Black roses symbolize obsession, specifically that the recipient of the flower is the object of the giver's obsession. It was quite apt.

As I neared the town I had to be careful not to be seen running behind the buildings or through the alleys until I made it to the main road where I could walk and look like any other person taking an afternoon stroll.

I still didn't know how I was supposed to go about this. I knew where her house was, but it might have seemed disturbing if I were to simply show up there without being invited or told where it was. I didn't want her to think I was stalking her, even if I sort of had been. It made me sound like a creep, and I had no intention of seeming like that to Bella.

So I hoped that she would simply be around town today as she had been the night before and I could accidentally run into her. If not I would have to keep trying.

I walked around all day. I tried to act casual and nonchalant all day. I pretended as though I belonged there as I meandered past stores and restaurants. I did not see her. I sighed as the night finally set in, the sun falling below the horizon. There were significantly less people meandering about and I figured that it would seem conspicuous for me to continue to walk around. So I made one stop before going to Bella's.

The florist was about to close. I saw the woman behind the locked door with the sign flipped to close. I knocked politely on the door.

"Sorry, we're closed, you will have to…" her voice faded as she looked up and saw me. I smiled my very best charming smile. She looked quite dazed for a moment.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late, but I was wondering if you could make an exception."

Her mind was frozen. It kicked to life suddenly, flooding me with thoughts of how attractive she thought I was. As her mind processed my request she was already heading over to the door.

"Just this once. But don't tell anyone about this or I will never hear the end of it," she told me, never taking her eyes off me except to unlock the door. She let me in and I thanked her politely, smiling graciously. Her heart was sped up with that single expression.

"Are you looking for something specifically?" she asked quietly. I nodded.

"I was wondering if you carry black roses," I said, gazing about the store. It was filled to the brim with all sorts of flowers. Each of them had a meaning, one that I could recall if I tried. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman nod absently.

"Yes we do. How many would you like?"

"Just one please."

She reluctantly turned her back and went in the back of the store to a refrigerator where she kept some other flowers. When she returned she was holding a single black rose in her hand. It wasn't actually black of course, but the red was so deep it was frequently mistaken for black. It looked so perfect as she laid it on the counter and punched a few numbers into the cash register.

"Two dollars and fifty cents," she said. I removed the correctly amount from my wallet and handed it over. In exchange I picked up the rose and examined it. The fragrance of the flower was sweet and subtle. I hoped she would like it.

I walked to her house via back alleys, careful not to be seen as I moved at a lightly faster than human pace. I still felt slow but I knew I was going too fast to be thought normal. As I approached her home I listened hard to see if she was home. I could not rely merely on her scent because her home would be filled with it. I could not hear much, only the gentle rustle of paper. As I drew closer I began to recognize that sound for the turning of pages. Someone was reading a book.

I went to the source of the sound and found Bella sitting in the living room part of her house, turning the pages of a book, scanning the pages in a perfunctory manner before turning them again as though she was looking for something and not reading. Eventually she got frustrated and put the book down. She sighed heavily and leaned back against the plush chair she sat upon, staring up at the ceiling. I sat and watched her for hours, as she sat there alone. She made herself dinner at one point and turned on the radio, though it became clear that she was not actually paying any attention to it. Eventually she turned off the radio and went upstairs, I presumed to go to bed. I heard the shower start. After the shower she did indeed go lie in bed, but she did the same as she had the night before, lying there awake.

After she fell asleep I snuck back into her room. It was a dangerous game I was playing here being so close to her, but I had kept the monster back the night before, there was no reason I could not do it tonight. I sat beside her bed again, waiting to see if she would talk again in her sleep. It was almost an hour before she did, and the words she spoke meant nothing to me. She did not cry in her sleep tonight, neither did her dreams cause her to cry out and beg me to stay. Still though, I could not leave.

As morning approached I felt torn. Would the moment I had seen in Alice's mind occur today if I were to stay? Or had that chance passed already? I sighed and resigned to stick to the first plan I had come up with.

I escaped through her open window again and began walking to the front of her house. On my way I stripped the rose of all its thorns, making sure she would not cut herself. I lay it then on her front stoop about a foot from the door so she would not step on it. The newspaper was there beside it, making the startling color stand out even more.

Then I waited.

It was almost an hour before Bella awoke. It was almost fifteen minutes more before she came downstairs. I would have been watching what she was doing but I was waiting in my concealed spot just on the edge of the woods to the right of her house. It gave me a perfect view of the front stoop and eventually of Bella when she found my rose.

If I had a functioning heart it would have been pounding in anticipation. I couldn't wait any longer. I was tempted to just burst in her house and _hand_ her the damn rose if she didn't come outside soon. And then the sound of the door unlocking came to my ears. I held my breath, not to keep her scent from assaulting me but because I was keeping myself from crying out and giving myself away hen she saw what I had left her.

She stepped outside and I could already see the puzzled expression on her face. She bent over and retrieved the paper without looking at it, and at the same time picked up the rose. She stared at it intensely for a long moment before smiling slightly. She looked around, as though expecting the giver of such a gift to appear and claim the credit.

Not yet. I could not approach her yet.

But soon.


	5. Can't and Won't

My nights and morning became routine over those next dew days. Every evening I left my home and went to the florist who had grown accustomed to my nightly visits. I bought a single black rose each night. I would spend the dark hours by Bella's bedside, listening to her inarticulate mumblings, watching her as she slept. The third night I was there she cried again, not as long as she had the first night. Again I could do nothing but watch and gently brush away her tears.

Each morning I would strip the rose of its thorns and leave it on her doorstep and watch as she claimed it as she fetched the paper. The look of joy on her face was clear from where I was every time she picked it up. After seeing her cry, hearing the sadness in her voice when she spoke during dreams it gave me unimaginable pleasure to see her smile. It was after the third morning in a row of depositing these little gifts on her stoop that I decided I couldn't wait any longer.

On the fourth morning I watched her face as she opened the door. She was expecting another flower to be sitting on her step as there usually was. Today though, I had skipped the flower, for the moment at least. Instead of a rose I had left a note. I could not go up to her door directly, I was far too cowardly for such boldness. On the note I had simply requested her presence at the coffee shop a few blocks from her house. I asked for her to meet me there at ten o'clock. That would give me plenty of time to get done what I needed.

At first I noticed her disappointed expression as she noticed she did not have a rose waiting for her. But then my note caught her eye and she bent down with a look of pure anticipation. She read it and a grin bloomed across her face. Without even bothering with the paper she rushed into her house. I could hear her dialing the phone.

"Becky? Yes, of course it's Bella. No, there wasn't a rose out there today. There was a note. Whoever it is wants me to meet them this morning…well obviously I have thought of that. I don't really know anyone else that would do something like this…it doesn't matter how sweet of a gesture this is, I'm not going to give him a pity date and get his hopes up…of course. I'll call you when I get home. Bye."

Even though I wanted to stay after that I had things to do. I had to go home and change my clothes. I had to visit the florist. I had to go to the coffee shop. I took a deep breath and began the short run back home. Within five minutes I was standing outside the door.

"Hurry up, Edward. If you are late she is going to be mad!" Alice called form inside. Of course it stood to reason that she would already know about this. I had not told her exactly what I was doing these past few night, but I was sure she had some semblance of an idea. My family knew only that I was spending my nights in town. They suspected it had something to do with her, but they had no idea why I would be spending so much time watching her. Their silent questions hung in my head as their thoughts betrayed them. They would never ask outright, but they all wanted to know.

It was a little after eight in the morning when I arrived back at home. I showered and changed, wanting to look my best. Not that it would matter much how long I fretted over my appearance. But still I looked myself over many times. I was nervous. That much was glaringly obvious. I was about to actually meet this girl. No longer was I simply watching her in her sleep or leaving her flowers or almost killing her when she stumbled upon my household. This was a face-to-face encounter where her immediate death was not on the agenda.

"EDWARD!" Alice shouted from downstairs. She sounded distressed so I raced to her side in an instant. She took one long look at me and smiled.

"You look great. Now its nine thirty. That gives you enough time to drive to town and stop at the florist. Believe me, you are going to need the car," she said, smiling with mischief. I glowered at her. She was forever going to leave me out of my own futures, taunting me with little pieces of information. I sighed and snatched my keys off the little table by the door as I walked outside. The sky was a dismal gray just like most of the days we had around here. I got into my car and drove to town just like Alice had advised me.

When I reached the florist she was not surprised to see me.

"I was wondering where you were last night. I thought you had given up on your lady friend," she said, already going in the back room to retrieve a rose for me.

"Not at all. I simply moved the plans I had for last night to this morning," I replied as I paid for the flower. The woman—Shannon—smiled at me and I smiled back. She looked slightly dazed again for a moment. I forgot that I did that to people sometimes. After a second though she shook her head and put the money in the register. I thanked her and left the shop. She really was a nice woman. She thought too much about a young man who was appeared to be young enough to be her son, but other than that she was a pleasant person.

I drove the additional two or three miles to the coffee shop I was meeting Bella at and I waited. A waitress asked if I would like anything but I shook my head. Human food and drink held no interest for me. I sat in one of the large chairs that were arranged around a small circular table, waiting for Bella. There were not a lot of other people in the coffee shop—a young woman and her fiancée in one corner, a mother with her teenage daughter in another. It was not as if Bella could possibly mistake any of them for the one who had been leaving her flowers.

I sighed as I gazed upon the rose once more. She would see it, see me, and know. I was terrified and excited at the same time. What if she rebuffed me as I had assumed she would? What if she took one single look at me and was too frightened to even realize I was the one leaving her the roses?

I glanced at the clock on the wall every few minutes, which only seemed to make time go by slower. For a being who had nothing _but_ time, when the minutes that ticked by dragged like hours it seemed like eternity would be nothing but a horrid waste. Every second that passed seemed to take a lifetime. She was going to be here. She was going to see me. Alice promised she would not run away. She promised she would not be too frightened of me.

It was almost ten o'clock when the little bell above the door jingled to signal someone's arrival. With the opening of the door I was able to smell the sweetest, most potent aroma on the face of the planet and without even looking up I knew she was here. I took a deep breath, drawing the fresh, strong scent into my body. What had once been a scream for her blood was now just a cry, a plea, a whimper. I smiled at my control. I had regained some restraint over my darker side.

That was when I looked up. Precious Bella was standing in the middle of the room, looking about. There were a few other people here now, but none of them were men alone. I was the only one. She had not looked over to me yet. She was looking for something; it was obvious in the way she gazed about.

When she turned and her eyes rested on me everything seemed to stop. That moment in my living room repeated itself. Her eyes held mine in an unbelievable and unbreakable hold. I heard a sharp intake of breath as her heart started to race. She blinked rapidly and then looked down at the table. There upon it lay a single rose, the one I had bought for her like the others. The shock on her face was priceless and adorable. I had to smile at her incredulous expression.

"You," she stated quietly. I didn't think she was aware of the steps she was taking in my direction. I nodded and smiled again.

"Me," I replied. I stood and pulled out the chair across the table for her. She was still staring at me completely unabashedly as she sat down. She looked down at the rose and then back at me.

"You are the one who has been leaving me roses?" she asked, as though she still could not believe it. I nodded again, confirming the suspicion she still seemed not to want to believe.

"But…but you tried to kill me!" she exclaimed, keeping her voice low. I frowned.

"I apologize most profoundly for my behavior upon our first meeting, Bella. I was not myself. But I assure you, you are in no danger now."

She seemed to accept this and even get put at ease by this reassurance. I was flabbergasted at how easily I was able to assuage her worries. She had seemed too shocked, too full of fear for me to possibly persuade her that I meant her no harm. All it took was a simple promise and she seemed to be placated. She should not have believed me so easily. It worried me that she was so easily swayed to think I would not hurt her. It was not as though I was not thoroughly tempted. It took every ounce of control I had, every year, every _day_ of practice I had ever had to keep from snapping her pretty little neck and taking what my body was claiming it needed.

"Why?" she asked. I could only assume she meant why I was here, why I had left her the flowers, why I had bothered with any of this. But I could not know for sure because her mind was just as closed to me as ever. It was just as frustrating as ever, more so even because now that we were interacting I wished I could tell what she would like me to say in response to her questions.

"You have perplexed me, Bella. Our first meeting was…interesting to say the very least. Since then I have to come to find that nothing quite adds up as I wish it to. For example why it was I reacted so violently to you in the first place, or how you injured yourself, or what you were doing running around the woods alone in the middle of the night," I explained. At my last statement she blushed a delightful crimson color. Her scent concentrated for a long moment and I held my breath to keep from being overwhelmed.

"But those questions are things we can save for another time. For the present moment I would simply like to know if you would like anything to drink."

Her face contorted into an expression of confusion until she seemed to realize we were indeed inside a coffee shop.

"Oh! No, thank you. I don't really drink coffee."

"Tea perhaps?" I offered. We needed a reason to be in the shop. I had been able to keep the waitress away telling her I was meeting someone here. But if neither of us bought something there would be no reason to stay in this little store very long. I desperately wanted to make this morning last. Time, as I had learned, was all I had. If I could not stretch it to my advantage I would feel utterly powerless despite my strength and speed.

"Tea sounds just fine," she finally agreed. I could see her questions behind her eyes as she stared at me. I waved the waitress over and Bella ordered her tea and a muffin and then the waitress went off to fetch her order. There was a long silence then where Bella simply looked at me with a puzzled look upon her face as though she was trying to solve a very difficult puzzle. How strange to think I might puzzle her as much as she puzzled me.

"I really did fall, you know," she said finally. I looked at her questioningly. She raised her left hand and the splint Carlisle had put in place was still on her wrist. I nodded as if to let her continue and she sighed.

"I believe the phrase 'coordination challenged' would best describe how I came into this particular injury. I do that a lot—fall I mean. I trip over nonexistent dust particles or my own two feet and end up on my face, or in this case, fracturing my wrist as Carlisle told me. He was a very nice man. Was he your father?" she asked.

It was simply amazing how she managed to take a statement about herself and turn it into a question about me. I nodded in reply to her inquiry, as her tea and blueberry muffin were set in front of her. She took a long look at the empty space in front of me but said nothing as she sipped at her tea.

"And the rest of the people there…" she trailed off.

"Esme is my mother. Alice and Jasper are married, as you may or may not have noticed when you stumbled upon us that night. Emmett and Rosalie are also married. They are my siblings."

"So you aren't…married then?" she asked, avoiding eye contact.

"I would not be leaving you roses and asking you to meet me at coffee shops if I already belonged to someone, Bella."

She sighed.

"You look too young to be married, anyway," she muttered. I laughed at that. I was sure I appeared young to her, I would forever be seventeen. But in truth, well, I was a bit older than that. I was in no way too young to be _anything_, however I might have appeared.

"Appearances can be deceiving," I replied. It wasn't until I finished my sentence than I realized I was being just as cryptic as Alice had been lately. I knew how much I hated it, but in truth this was for her safety, not simply to annoy her. I was more or less certain Alice only remained mysterious in an attempt to irritate me to death, or at least see if it was possible. Not much else worked.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked suspiciously, putting her mug down and looking at me intently over the table.

"It means you should not assume anything, especially about me or my family."

That response elicited an amused raise of an eyebrow as she picked a bite of her muffin and chewed it thoughtfully. Clearly my being enigmatic currently amused her. I wondered how long it would be until she found it exasperating.

"I still don't understand, you know," she stated.

"Don't understand what, exactly?"

"Why I am here. Why you have been leaving me flowers. What you are hoping to gain from this entire ordeal."

I sighed. I was going to have to be very frank with her, even though I wished not to be. I could understand why she would be confused. She had no idea who I was beyond the man who tried to kill her and had apparently been leaving her flowers.

"I am not exactly sure how I should word this. In the interest of being candid I suppose I shall just say it and hope it comes out in a way you understand. I am curious about you. Ever since you wandered into my yard during my siblings' wedding I wondered about you. You have been like a puzzle, a conundrum I have been trying to solve. I thought after I went back home I would stop being so thoroughly puzzled by your existence but that is not the case. Learning that you managed to run away from my house only brought me more curiosity. I had to find you, if only to know that you were a real person that was mystifying me.

"But once I found you it became apparent that I needed more than to just now you really existed. I needed some answers. So I thought perhaps I would invite you to coffee. After I remembered our first meeting though I figured perhaps I could charm you some first so you would not be too frightened of me to sit and talk with me. Which as I am seeing was a mission accomplished."

She continued to stare at me after I was done speaking as though she was utterly transfixed. I knew the feeling. There were times during those long hours in the middle of the night when I knew that a bomb could explode outside, a hurricane could hit, the world itself could come crashing down and I would be happy to do nothing more than simply gaze upon Bella's lovely sleeping face.

Fascination. Obsession. That was all. I reminded myself that this was not love. There was no such thing between a vampire and a human. There could no be, no matter how romantic it might seem for a while. It would end in her inevitable death. If I ever hurt her I was not sure I could ever forgive myself. In fact I knew I would not. To be the reason her warm skin cooled, to be the cause of her skin paling from its charming blush to an insipid complexion would tear me apart. I would not steal her innocence or her life. I refused.

"What exactly are you curious about?" she asked tentatively, as though she was afraid to speak. Her voice was so beautiful I wished she would speak more often.

"Some of the questions I need answered are my own problem, you could not solve these problems if you were to try. Others though, are your questions to answer if you would be so magnanimous as to oblige me."

"What did you just call me?" she asked. I laughed and she smiled a little the first real smile she had ever given me. It was a beautiful expression. Just that one tiny glimpse of it up close made me want to produce it more often. I looked own at my hands for a moment and then directly back into Bella's eyes, lingering there while I spoke.

"I'm sorry, sometimes I forget that just because I know the dictionary backwards and forwards does not mean that other people have enough time on their hands to become as familiar with it. I am simply asking if you would be gracious enough to answer my questions."

"Of course," she replied quickly. I realized from her slightly glazed expression that I may have been dazzling her a bit and broke the gaze. She seemed to regain herself and then sighed. She was waiting for my first query.

"What were you doing out at my house in the middle of the night?" I asked quietly. Her face reddened as it had before. I was sure this was going to be the hardest question to get an answer to, but it was also the most pressing question in my mind. I was sure that I would never be able to understand why I could not read her mind or why her blood called to me so strongly. I had accepted I would never know the answers to those questions, no matter how strong my desire to know was.

"I can't answer that, Edward," she said softly, using my name for the first time. I wondered for a long moment where she had heard it and then remembered that Esme had told it to her and most likely Carlisle had as well. Hearing my name come off of her lips sent a thrill though me, almost like a chill. But her response frustrated me. What did she mean she couldn't answer me?

"Bella, surely you know the difference between 'can't' and 'won't'. Why do I get the feeling this is a case of the latter rather than the former?"

Again her face was tinged with blood and she bit her lip. She opened her mouth to answer me and then closed it again. After a long moment she sighed.

"Fine. I won't answer that. Feel free to ask me anything else."

"Anything?" I inquired. She nodded. I had no idea how to phrase the question I wanted to ask her. I wanted to know her troubles, her worries, the kind of thing that caused a woman as beautiful, clearly intelligent, charming in the most unexpected and unintentional way, diffident and yet forthright to cry in her sleep. For one's subconscious to be so preoccupied it would terrorize you with dreams that led to tears was a sign of some sort of trauma or extreme stress.

But for obvious reasons I could not tell her that I had seen her crying in her sleep, stayed beside her when she begged not to be alone. I could not tell her _why_ I wanted to know her problems, nor could I explain how I knew she had any to begin with.

"Forgive me for making assumptions. I know that I told you it was not a wise course of action, but I find I can do nothing else if you wont give me the real reason. But I am wondering if perhaps there is something troubling you, something that would cause a young woman such as yourself to be alone and in the situation that we have agreed you will not explain at this point in time."

For a moment she seemed startled. As she opened her mouth the waitress came to the table and laid the check down. Before Bella could even move I took it and looked it over. I pulled my hands back into my lap as to make sure she knew she would not be responsible for paying. She seemed to understand this and then as soon as the woman was gone from earshot she began to speak.

"I appreciate your concern, but I promise, I'm okay. Other than being clumsy and apparently having very bad timing and ruining your sister's wedding, nothing is wrong."

"You didn't ruin Alice's wedding. In fact she thought it might have been the best wedding she has ever been to. Very exciting, in her opinion. It might be because she is mildly insane, but we try not to judge her," I said. Bella stared at me in disbelief. Then she laughed.

"She did seem a bit out there when she came and talked to me," she admitted with a smile. She had caught on to the joke.

"Classic Alice. She only acts that way around people she likes so you should feel flattered. She took quite a liking to you. The whole family did. Which leads me to another question. Why did you run away?"

"I hardly think your whole family liked me. Alice was very nice and her husband…Jasper? He seemed to find me distasteful. It looked like he thought I smelled bad or something. Emmett was entertaining but Rosalie hated me," she confessed, carefully ignoring my question.

"Rose didn't hate you," I assured her. That may or may not have been a lie. Rosalie didn't like Bella. It was evident from the second we walked into the house and we could tell she was there. Her first thoughts were about the stench of the human girl and how long it would take to get it out of the house. It was only more apparent in the way she seemed totally apathetic about Bella when we discussed her oddity later when I came home. The comment she made about Jasper thinking she smelled bad however made me smile internally. It was likely quite the opposite. She smelled _too_ good to him. He had the least amount of practice out of the whole family when it came to abstaining. Other than me he was the only one who had ever made a living off of human blood. I was ashamed of that part of my past but I was admittedly relieved when I learned of that part of his history.

"Really? Because when I overheard her telling Emmett that she didn't want him spending so much time with me because she detested even being in the same room as me I was pretty sure that meant she hated me."

I was suddenly angry with Rosalie. She was no idiot. She would have known that Bella could hear her when she said that to Emmett. She would have expected it to upset Bella. It was likely her goal to make her angry or distraught. If there was a bone in her body that wasn't self-centered it was the only one I was not tempted to break at that moment.

"I'm sorry she said that. Rosalie is a jealous woman. If Emmett were paying attention to any pretty young woman she would find it infuriating. That you just so happened to be staying in our house at that point in time only added to her rage. It really had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her insecurities."

She laughed.

"Rosalie was insecure because of _me_? You must be joking," she said, her voice still full of mirth. I frowned.

"I assure you I am quite serious. Why would you assume I was not?" I asked.

"Why would Rosalie ever be insecure around me? You live with her, surely you've noticed how beautiful she is. She has nothing to worry about with me."

"I'm afraid that I don't understand what you are saying."

"Rosalie may be the most beautiful creature under the sun. I don't compare to her in any way. I don't see how she would ever feel unselfconfident because of my presence."

My brow furrowed. Did she not own a mirror? Was she half blind? How could she not see how exquisite she was?

"Bella, are you trying to tell me that you don't think you measure up to Rosalie?" I asked. She nodded immediately as though it was obvious. I shook my head.

"What?" she demanded.

"It just puzzles me why it is a woman such as yourself would feel unsure of herself in any way."

She scoffed, clearly thinking I must be joking again. When she saw I was not, her cheeks flamed. I could almost feel the heat radiating off of them.

"Well sitting with you doesn't help," she commented.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I questioned. She rolled her eyes.

"As if you don't know. We must look like quite the pair sitting here. You with all your…perfection. And then me, plain and ordinary. Have you not noticed people staring at you this whole time?"

I shook my head. "I have been quite busy talking to a beautiful woman. People have been staring you say?"

Again she blushed and she had to look down to avoid showing me the smile and pleasure in her expression. How I loved making her smile. If I could spend eternity finding ways to make her repeat that expression I would gladly live forever. I knew I was charming her, being charismatic and debonair with the intention of gaining her favor. Again it was dangerous to want to be so close to her, and more dangerous still to do things so I could become so. But throughout this entire exchange I had managed to keep my needs for her blood in check. I wanted only her company.

When she looked back up at me her face was once again calm and resigned, the only indication of the moment before was the fading flush of her cheeks.

"I didn't leave because of her. I left because I couldn't help feeling like I was being watched all the time. It was like being in a zoo, like I was being observed. It was very disconcerting. I don't think anyone would have hurt me but I was going to go mad if I had to sit on the couch any longer and allow your family to wait on me and watch me like they were waiting for me to perform some trick or have a major epileptic seizure or something."

I was glad to hear that Rosalie had not been the reason she had run away. I could understand how being observed like she said she had been would make her uncomfortable. It was purely for her own safety that someone kept watch on her. She of course knew nothing of the reason for the precautions so she was left to draw her own conclusions.

"I suppose that is completely understandable. My family has the tendency to be a bit eccentric," I explained. Eccentric was one word you could use. Slightly insane was another, but I would hardly frighten her off with that.

I looked over Bella's shoulder to the clock on the wall. It was eleven thirty already. How had so much time passed? The minutes before her arrival had seemed like millennia and now an hour and a half had passed and it seemed to go by in a flash.

"You know, this morning has been quite unfair to me," Bella stated, bringing my attention back to the girl before me and out of my thoughts.

"How so?"

"Here I am answering all of your questions, but I have hardly gotten a minute in to ask _you_ any," she replied. I spread my hands before me in a _go ahead_ gesture and she smiled, clearly pleased she was getting a turn.

"How did you know where I lived?" she asked. This was a question I was prepared for. I had heard through the thoughts of her friends that her last name was Swan. After some checking in the phone book I saw there was only one Swan listed, and it was at the address she now inhabited. It was a Charlie Swan, a man I could only assume was her father, seeing as it was her father's house that she was given to live in.

"You weren't hard to find. Your name is in the phone book," I said calmly.

"My _father's_ name is in the phone book."

"He was the only Swan in the whole book. It was a safe bet that it was your house as well."

She stared at me as though she thought there was more to it—and granted, there was—but I said nothing else about the matter and she seemed to let it go.

"Why did you attack me?" she asked. Her voice was resolute, sure of itself. I had expected her to be afraid to ask such a question but she seemed anything but. I admired that.

"I can't answer that," I responded, using her words. It was the truth in part. I knew why I had attacked her—the maddeningly sweet scent that accompanied her everywhere she walked, pounding through her at this very moment with every beat of her heart. However, the reason behind her blood's lure was still a mystery to me.

"Looks like I am not the only one who has trouble with cant and wont," she said, her eyebrows raised. I laughed but shook my head.

"I wish I could say I knew the answer to that riddle. It has been, well to coin a popular phrase, it has been keeping me up nights. I don't know any better than you do what caused such a violent reaction. I can only apologize again for my incredibly rude behavior. It was unacceptable of me to conduct myself in such a way."

"No bruise, no foul. I forgive you, Edward. Though I would appreciate if you would warn me if you ever feel behavior like that coming on again," she said, trying to make a joke of it. This was no laughing matter. I could not joke about the possibility that I would want to steal her life away as I found myself frequently, desperately fighting not to.

"I assure you that will never happen again," I stated dryly. She looked at me and seemed to understand that I was not in the mood to tease about life or death situations. She coughed uncomfortably and I realized that we had been together for almost two hours now. That was enough for today. We both needed time to come to terms with the information we had just learned.

I pulled out my wallet and laid money on the table, not wanting any change.

"Let me walk you home," I offered. She nodded and stood up, grabbing her rose as she did. We walked out together in silence. There was not much left for us to say to each other. We walked the two blocks to her house without any more words. When we reached her front step she stopped and turned around. She smiled at me softly and sighed.

"Well this has certainly been an interesting morning," she said. I nodded. That was without doubt one of the biggest understatements of the year.

"It was very nice to finally get to talk with you, Bella," I said graciously. At that she smiled wide.

"You too, Edward. Maybe I'll see you around?" she asked, a lilt of a question at the end of the word making her sound hopeful but doubtful.

"Of course. I live in town. I wont be far. You know how to get to my house, right?" I teased. She blushed—my goal really—and shook her head.

"That was completely by accident. I wouldn't be able to find it again if I tried. I am horrible with directions," she admitted. We both laughed and then she sighed again.

"Until next time, Edward."

"Indeed."

She turned her back to me and switched the rose from her right hand to her left so she could use her good hand to open the door.

In the process of switching hands a thorn caught her skin and tore it.

I couldn't help the growl that escaped my lips as I saw the single drop of blood bead up to the surface of her skin. Her body visibly stiffened at the sound. The sudden assault of scent made my muscles tense and ready to spring.

"E-Edward?"

I had no words for her.

I could only react.

* * *

I believe diabolical laughter is appropriate here, so MWAHAHA... 


	6. Truth

For a moment I was frozen.

And then everything happened in rapid motion.

As fast as possible I threw myself away from her and ran. I was in the woods and almost all the way home before I stopped. I was gasping clean air, trying to rid my mouth and nose of her scent in the air. Fresh blood spilled by my mistake. It was just a little cut, just a tiny little prick that would not bleed more than that single drop most likely, but it was enough, more than enough.

This was why there could never be anything like love between us. A tiny scrape would send me into a frenzy. Just the _sight_ of her blood propelled my lust for it to the forefront of my mind. As long as it was not out in the open I could control the beast, but if she were to hurt herself even the least bit I would not be able to help the monster as it roared to life and begged for a taste of her.

I approached my house and felt heavy with shame. I should have known better. This was idiotic. How could I have ever thought that I could spend time with her and it would not lead to disaster? _This _disaster was my fault. I had forgotten to remove the thorns from the rose. I hadn't been thinking clearly. I was too excited, too keyed up at the thought of finally getting to see her and know she was looking back at me.

It was an honest mistake, but one that almost cost Bella her life.

I was about to open the door when Alice opened it for me, her face full of worry.

"She is fine, Alice. A tiny cut on her finger, nothing more," I said before she could voice the questions that swirled in her mind like a storm.

"What did you do?" she asked. I was surprised she did not already know.

"I ran away. I left her there. I don't know how I managed it. I couldn't…I couldn't think. I almost killed her," I confessed, remembering how close I had come to pinning her to side of her house and murdering her in broad daylight. No one else was around, no one would not have seen. And even if someone had, I could have disposed of them easily enough. But I had found some unknown strength and run away though. Bella had kept her life, her humanity.

What she had most likely lost was any sort of trust she had in me. I had just finished promising her that I would not hurt her and I had very nearly killed her again. There was no way she could forgive such an action. I knew I was taking a risk being so near to her, but I had been remiss because of my desire to be in her company. I had almost forgotten how easily she could be hurt, how easily she could cause my instincts to surface.

"Edward, you have to go back," Alice informed me. I stared at her in utter disbelief.

"Did you hear anything I just said? _I almost killed her._ I almost took her life because she got a tiny little cut on her finger. A single drop of blood and I was ready to destroy her. How can I go back there? How can I possibly expect her to understand?"

She laughed and I growled at her. I was not in the mood to be mocked.

"Are you afraid to go back because of her safety or because you are ashamed? Perhaps a bit of both?"

"Alice―"

"Listen to me now, and don't interrupt. I know you want to do things your way. I know you hold yourself to a high standard. But I also know that you always assume the worst. Right now in your mind Bella is frightened beyond belief, cursing your very existence because you scared her a little. In reality, most likely she is putting a Band-Aid on her finger and wondering why you ran off like you did. If you don't answer her now, she will just ask the next time you see her."

I sighed. This was getting so much more complicated. I couldn't just tell her what I was. I couldn't simply explain to her about being a vampire. She was not supposed to be brought into this. She was not supposed to know about my world. She was innocent, untouched, pure. How could I besmirch that by showing her the evil of the world? By exposing her to the true wickedness that lurked beneath human radar I would be putting her in very real danger. She would never truly be safe again, not that any humans really were. I was too afraid to put her life at risk by showing her the things most people never dreamed of.

I was also afraid of her reaction. Hypothetically, if I were to show her what I was, what my whole family was and explain about us and the others that existed in the world, what would she do? Would she hate me for what I was? Would she be terrified? Would she push me away, never wanting to see me again?

"Now or later, Edward. You either tell her now or she finds out later and resents you for lying to her," Alice warned.

"You're sure she will find out?" I asked. She nodded.

"Positive. She is a lot more understanding than you give her credit for. Just tell her. Take a chance. Didn't this morning go better than you thought it would? You were afraid she wouldn't even want to talk to you, but it turned out that she was more than willing after you just gave her the chance. She deserves the benefit of the doubt."

Alice infuriated and relieved me at the same time. She seemed to be attuned to the way my mind worked and adept at explaining the irrationality of my fears and worries to me when the need arose. I didn't exactly think these fears and worries were irrational, but if Alice said she would know sooner or later about what I was it might be in everyone's best interest to tell her myself. I sighed heavily.

I was not used to feeling such complete, debilitating indecision. I was used to knowing what I should do, knowing what I _wanted_ to do and not having to worry about anything else. But now everything seemed different.

_Just go._

Alice glared at me and I glared right back. Why was she being so forceful? Since when was this so important to her?

"Alice, you don't have some sort of ulterior motive here, do you?"

"Ulterior motive? Besides keeping my brother happy and _not_ depressed and moping incessantly about the house like I see you doing now if you refuse to go see her? If there is any ulterior motive it's keeping you in a good mood so Jasper doesn't spiral into a depression with you, okay?"

I looked into her thoughts, but if there was anything there to give away why she seemed so adamant about my going to see Bella she wasn't showing me.

"Fine."

Before she could make any other snide remarks I went outside and began walking slowly toward Bella's house. It wasn't human paced walking, but it was close. While I walked I was trying to figure out what I could say to her to make her understand and not frighten her more than she was already. It would probably be best to just wait and see what kind of questions she asked.

When the woods finally ended and I could see her house I had to stop. I took a breath. With that final move of resolution I took the remaining steps to her front stoop and rapped lightly on the door. As I stood there it began to mist lightly. There would be rain shortly, but for now it was only a light sprinkling. Was the rain what Alice had meant when she told me I would need the car?

When Bella answered the door she looked a little shocked. Before she could speak I had to at least try and apologize.

"I am so sorry, Bella," I said quickly. She nodded.

"Apology accepted, though I have to admit I am not really sure what happened."

"I know. And I think you deserve an explanation. I have every intention of answering all your questions. Do you mind if I come in?" I asked tentatively. She shook her head and backed away from the door so I could come inside. She closed the door behind me. As she walked by, leading to the living room I could see the little band-aid Alice had predicted wrapped around her third finger. Just one drop of blood. Just a tiny cut, a knick really. I shook my head, pushing away the guilt I felt for the things I had wanted to do. I hadn't done them. I had controlled myself. I had kept myself in check.

She sat in the chair I had seen her in before. I sat on the sofa across from her, separated by less than two feet. It seemed like such a long way suddenly.

"So…what happened?" she asked.

"You cut yourself," I started. I paused, unsure of how to proceed from there.

"I am aware," she replied, holding up her already injured hand to show off the band-aid.

"I had forgotten to take the thorns off the rose. It was a stupid mistake, an oversight I made in my haste and excitement. Even still, such a tiny error almost cost you your life."

Her eyes grew wide. She was still waiting for me to continue. I could see she was beginning to understand. She just needed me to keep going to confirm her growing suspicions.

"The first time I met you I swore the smell of your blood was going to break me. I know Carlisle told you we react differently than most people. That's true. However, it isn't the whole story. We react differently because we are different. We aren't human, Bella."

"You're…you're a…"

"You can say it."

"Vampire," she whispered softly and then looked away as though she was ashamed. If anyone had a reason to ashamed of the word vampire it was not Bella. She was not the demon.

"Now do you understand why when you cut yourself I had to go?" I asked. She nodded absently as her mind worked behind her eyes. It was irritating to know she was thinking, pondering something deeply and not be able to tell what it was. I wanted to know if she was realizing that there was a monster in her home, and that she should get rid of me as soon as she could.

"I still don't understand something," she confessed. I waited as she gathered the courage to ask her question. She drew a deep breath and then looked into my eyes, keeping her gaze steady she spoke.

"If you wanted to kill me so badly when we first met and when I cut myself it was hard for you too be near me, how are you doing it now?"

This was one of the things I did not want to have to explain. I was not sure how much of the truth I would give her now about my repeated visits to her bedroom and how I built up a sort of tolerance for the screaming in my head to kill her.

"Well first of all I have a lot of practice abstaining. I don't feel so tempted by other people. In fact I don't feel so tempted by anyone else, I never have. Being around other humans is bearable as long as I am not…thirsty. My family and I go hunting often enough to keep the hunger from becoming too much an causing us to attack someone by accident."

"How do you accidentally attack someone?" she asked, sounding a little confused and disbelieving.

"Bella, imagine going days without eating anything and then suddenly being put in a room with the most delicious foods imaginable. How would you react to that?"

"I would reach for the first thing I could."

"Exactly. We—my family and I—do our best to make sure that doesn't happen. By hunting every few weeks or so we can keep the hunger under control so we don't lash out thoughtlessly. We don't want to kill anyone, especially not by accident because we could not control our cravings."

Her face contorted. She looked confused for a long moment.

"But I thought you said you go hunting," she said, as though she was missing something.

"We do. Frequently."

"But you said you don't want to kill people."

"We don't…oh! I am dreadfully sorry, I forgot to explain one of the biggest differences between my family and the rest of my kind. We don't kill humans. My father—Carlisle—discovered when he was made that it was possible to sustain ourselves on the blood of animals. That is how my family survives. We hunt animals—deer when we need to, but other larger predators when we can—to keep our thirst in check. As long as we hunt often enough it is possible to feel mostly unaffected by the scent of human blood."

"But not mine?"

I stared into her eyes for a long moment then. The warm brown color seemed to reflect my emotions—worry, nerves, feeling so helpless and a hunger I was uncertain I knew how to sate.

"Bella, I wish I knew how to tell you what this feels like. I wish I could explain it without alarming you."

"Tell me anyway," she requested. She did not look afraid, at least not yet.

"The smell of your blood is like waving food in front of a starving man. He wants it; he _needs_ it. His whole body demands that he take the food and devour it that very second because without it, he might die. I can control myself. I have taught my body to ignore the call of human blood because I have practiced self-discipline and I hunt regularly enough to keep it under control. But you…something about your scent challenges every day I spent in control of myself. The smell that comes off your skin is the sweetest thing I have ever smelled in my life, and that is just right now while you are sitting across from me.

"Imagine now that you have taken that food and set it on a plate before the starving man. That is more or less what you did when you cut yourself. You reminded me I was starving and shoved the fact that you offer relief of that pain in my face. If I hadn't left you then you would have had no chance. I am still not quite sure how I managed it."

Through this explanation I had been looking out the window at the rain that was now falling steadily. I could not meet her eyes. I could not look at her while I told her how hard it was for me not to kill her. I knew I had explained that I could control myself, that I had some semblance of restraint, but it was not always enough, as I had shown her. I wanted to kill her. She knew that now. And she also knew why.

"So are you telling me that no matter what happens, you are going to kill me?" she asked. I looked up at her.

"No! Absolutely not, Bella, I mean nothing of the sort. I am simply telling you the facts as best as I can. Its hard to explain how this feels to someone like you," I said quietly.

"A human?"

"A human, someone I barely know, the woman whose blood I crave above all others…there are plenty of reasons why this is difficult," I replied. She nodded, but said nothing else for a long moment.

"Where do we go from here?" she asked.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On several things, the first and most important being whether or not I am strong enough to stay away from you. The second being whether or not you _want_ me to stay away from you. The third being how afraid you are now that I have told you these things."

We sat in silence. There was along pause in conversation where we simply looked at each other. Her eyes no longer reflected my emotions but refused to show a single thing. Every second that passed when she did not say anything I feared that she was figuring out how disgusting of a creature I was. Surely after she did she would force me out. But we sat for a long time still, not speaking, not moving. Until she finally shook her head.

"No," she muttered softly.

"No what?"

"I don't want you to stay away from me."

It is completely impossible to describe what I felt when I heard her say those words. The doubts, fears, worries—all vanished. Nothing mattered but what she had just told me. This wonderful girl, this angel, this heavenly being who deserved more than a creature of the night had admitted she did not wish for me to leave. I thought hearing her say that in her sleep was fulfilling, it was nothing compared to what this made me feel.

For once I felt whole. What this existence had taken from me no longer seemed relevant. Bella, beautiful, caring, understanding Bella, enjoyed my presence enough to risk her life. But that was the downfall of this situation. Every moment I spent with her I was risking her life. Every second I stayed in her company she was in danger. Any little accident could end her life because I thirsted for her blood. Her wanting to be around me only enforced the feeling I had that I needed to be strong enough to keep myself from her, no matter what I wanted.

And I desperately wanted to be close to her.

"You have no idea the dangers that would invite, Bella," I warned her.

"The constant threat of death if I am not mistaken," she replied. She was too flippant about her life, as though she didn't care if she were to have it stolen away in the next moment. I could so easily do what she seemed to dismiss with such little effort.

"You make it sound trivial."

"Maybe I am just in shock from your big confessions earlier, but you seem to be controlling yourself now, so I don't see why we can't be friends."

I eyed her suspiciously.

"Friends," I stated awkwardly.

"Yes, friends, you are familiar with the word, right? I mean if you would rather be mortal enemies I am sure we could work that out, although I think I am the only mortal in our situation so you might have to settle for arch-nemeses, okay?"

I was staring at her, completely bewildered. And then I laughed. Surely she could understand how ridiculous she had just sounded? She smiled back at me, gracing me with my all time favorite expression. There was something about her smile that put me at ease. It relaxed me. It made me feel at peace. She was happy and for some reason that seemed to be all that mattered at the moment.

"I think friends will work out just fine, thank you. I have enough nemeses as it is."

"What, do you fight with werewolves or something?" she asked, jokingly. I frowned.

"Let's not joke around about werewolves, they are absolutely vile creatures."

"Werewolves too? You _can't_ be serious!"

"Why ever not? If vampires are real, why not werewolves too?"

She shook her head and when she looked back at me she was smiling again.

"I don't know if I can handle all of you freaky supernatural creatures all at once. It's a little overwhelming."

I pouted and she rolled her eyes. We continued on with a friendly, easy banter for almost an hour. She made a point to make fun of my being a vampire and joke about every single ridiculous cliché possible while doing so. I figured if I was going to be spending time with her I should let her get it out now.

When it was time to go I was thankful to see the rain had stopped.

"I think perhaps it would be a good idea if I were to leave now. I should get back to my family. It would probably be an intelligent idea to hunt as well, if I am going to be seeing you again. You should take some time to let this all soak in. If you change your mind—about my leaving you alone—please let me know. I will respect your wishes, whatever they may be."

"And should I have anything to tell you, about my wishes regarding your presence or otherwise, when exactly would I get a chance to tell you?" she asked, the hope in her voice so apparent it was adorable. I smiled at her and she smiled back, a full and unguarded expression.

"I think I should be back from my hunting trip by tomorrow night. That is, of course, if you are free. I can't expect you to ignore all your other friends for me," I said, wondering what her response to that would be.

"Well, I did have some really boring reading to do, some completely unnecessary grocery shopping to do, but I suppose since you make the offer I could rearrange my schedule."

"Then I suppose I will see you tomorrow evening."

With that I stood and made my way to the door. She followed me and before I left I turned to her again.

"Oh and Bella, one last request. Please don't walk alone at night anymore," I said quietly. She looked at me, bewildered for a moment before realizing what I meant. I had been following her on the night when she was sure someone was behind her. She glared at me and mumbled a halfhearted promise before rolling her eyes and closing the door.

I managed to get to my car within a few minutes. Before I went home I stopped at the florist again. I got her a dozen black roses, a dozen lilies—symbolic of friendship— and a single orchid—symbolic of a rare beauty. I knew she would hardly understand what each of the flowers meant but I liked picking something out that had some sort of meaning to me as well as being beautiful.

I asked for a card from the Shannon this time so I could leave Bella another note. On the little white card I scribed my message. I parked my car a mile away and walked into the woods with my flowers and card in hand. I climbed up the tree in her yard that provided the view of her bedroom and saw that she was not in there. I did as I had done so often before and jumped up into her room and left my gifts on her unmade bed, careful not to make a sound. I wanted this to be a surprise.

Before I could be accidentally discovered I raced back out her window and back to my car. I laughed as I thought of her reading the note I left for her. 'To my favorite arch-nemesis. You are much more beautiful than a werewolf.' I was sure she would laugh when she read that, as soon as she got over the shock when she saw the flowers and wondered how I had managed to get in and out of her house without her knowing.

When I got home I went straight to hunt without going inside. I was sure I could get someone to go up to the mountains with me tonight to do some actual hunting, but I needed something right now to slake the hunger pains so I could wait long enough to get to the mountains.

I was aware that I had taken quite the chance today with Bella. It was possible that she could have rebuked me completely. It was possible she could have rejected me and I would have not only felt a personal loss, but then I would have had to tell Carlisle. Humans were not supposed to know of the existence of vampires. We were like an underground culture, secret to the human world. If she knew about us and wanted nothing to do with me it could have caused problems if she went around telling people about us. There were plenty of people who would have thought she was crazy, but there were always other people that would listen to her. If one of those people happened to be in contact with the Volturi she would be killed. If she was killed because of what I told her I would feel just as responsible as if I had ended her life with my own hands.

But as it turned out there was no reason to worry about her rejecting or exposing us. After I had explained everything, while she was teasing me incessantly, I had told her how important it was to keep the information she had been given a secret. She had seemed to already know this, telling me 'no one would believe me about you freaks, anyway'. I had not told her what the possible penalties of her exposing the vampire world could be, but it didn't seem necessary.

What did seem necessary was telling her to be more careful just in general. Even though she had sensed my presence the night I followed her home she was still being careless. It would not take much for someone—another less friendly vampire or just another human—to overtake her. It worried me that she was so careless about her safety.

All of this though still did not answer some of my biggest questions about her. The one she had refused to answer and the one I was sure she was lying about—what she had been doing out near my house and why she was crying in her sleep—were the most pressing inquiries I had made and the only two she would not answer. It bothered me. I resolved myself that the next time I went to see her—the next night if my plans went as I predicted—I would ask her for an answer to just one of them. I had taken a risk with the amount of honesty I had shown her today; I deserved some honesty in return.

As soon as I returned home I was confronted with a barrage of thoughts. Alice hadn't needed to tell them what she had seen. My behavior and the conversation between the she and I earlier had clued them in.

"How dare you!" Rosalie shouted as soon as I crossed the threshold of the house. The whole family was waiting in the foyer. Their thoughts ranged from excited, anxious, angry and indifferent.

"Rosalie, really, this is none―"

"Of my business? Since when is you _exposing our family to a human_ none of my business? Since when is you putting us all in danger because of some idiotic obsession with some stupid girl none of my business? Tell me, Edward, please enlighten me as to how it isn't my business, none of our business really, that you are a step away from bringing the Volturi down on our town."

"The Volturi? Please, Rosalie, they would hardly come to our tiny little part of the world to deal with one little girl," I argued. She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated.

"You cannot think of anyone but yourself for one moment can you? Didn't you think this might affect us, too? Did you possibly consider the fact that we might have an opinion about you sharing _our_ secret? In case you forgot you didn't just tell her about you, you told her about all of us."

I was about to argue more when we were both silenced.

"Enough! Both of you. Arguing will not change the past. What has been done cannot be undone. Rosalie I understand your anger, but please, there is no need to get overly dramatic about it. And, Edward, while I am sure you have your reasons for telling her I think it might have been wise to discuss it with us first. But regardless of how I feel about the present situation that does not alter the fact that you have told Bella the truth."

It was Carlisle that interjected and it was with his authority only that Rosalie and I halted our present fight. She continued shouting insults at me through her thoughts as I tuned her out and listened to Carlisle.

"She seemed to take it…I am not sure if the word 'well' is completely appropriate, but once everything was explained she did not seem too bothered by it. She knows she cannot tell anyone about us and she agreed to keep the secret without any persuasion on my part. Besides, Alice said I would either tell her now or she would find out later," I explained. Carlisle turned to Alice with a questioning look.

"If he didn't tell her she would have figured it out. A combination of little events and factors would have clued her in. She's quite the smart little thing," Alice said proudly, as though she was bragging about her child and not some girl she hardly knew.

I could see why Rose was angry. To her, Bella was just another human girl that none of us actually knew. To her I had told a complete stranger about our secret, our lives. But to me, Bella was no stranger.

I think what infuriated me most about Rosalie's argument was that she had used the word obsession. I had no idea it was that evident to anyone that I was obsessing over her. I was trying to keep that more or less a secret, but apparently I was not doing a very good job. That and the fact that she had referred to Bella as a stupid girl. She was nothing of the sort.

"Well, I think perhaps we can agree to disagree on the matter of Bella and go about our lives as we normally do?" Carlisle asked, playing the role of the diplomat. I nodded my head and Rose reluctantly agreed. Then Carlisle had to go to the hospital for work so we were left alone. As soon as he was out the door Rose glared at me. I glowered right back.

"I don't know why you are so fixated on her anyway, she wasn't even that pretty," she shot at me. In her mind she was mentally comparing herself to Bella, contrasting all their features.

"Is that what this is about, Rosalie? Are you feeling insecure?" I asked with a smirk.

"Because of that little human? You _must_ be kidding."

"Is that why you are mentally comparing yourselves, trying to number the ways she doesn't measure up and figure out why I find her more interesting than you?"

Her mouth gaped. It wasn't as if she didn't know I could hear her. She simply wasn't able to control herself.

"Oh you self-righteous bastard, who do you think you are?" she demanded. But she had made a mistake. Esme was standing not far away. She was displeased enough that we were continuing to argue now that Carlisle was gone, but Rosalie had gone and sworn, something she absolutely would not tolerate. As soon as the last word left her mouth she realized her error and apologized but it was too late.

"Both of you, out! I don't care where you go but I wont have your fighting in my house. Until you can either work this out or behave like civilized adults you will not be welcome back, do you understand?" she said. Her voice was hard as steel. She was not budging. We both nodded.

Rose glared at me as we walked outside like it was my fault that we were on house banishment until we could stop yelling at each other. As soon as we were outside I started walking off in the opposite direction of the house, heading for the mountains.

"Where do you think you are going?" Emmett asked as all my siblings filed outside.

"Hunting. I need something satisfying. Would you like to come with?" I inquired. But I knew he would stay behind to comfort his wife. She would need to vent to him for hours about how insensitive I was and how I was such a jerk and that I should know better and by the time I returned she would be happy to simply ignore me instead of yelling.

"Alice? Jasper? Would you like to come for a hunting trip?" I asked.

"That sounds delightful," Alice said. She looked to Jasper who simply nodded. He looked a little ill and rubbed at his temple as we began walking off again.

"Headache?" I asked, jokingly.

"Sort of. All of Rosalie's anger made my head hurt. That and your infatuation as making me a little sick earlier but other than that I am fine," he said and grinned at me. _Infatuation_? I was not infatuated with Bella. I was _not_.

But the more I thought of, the more I thought of _her,_ the more I became convinced that no matter what I did, I was getting in deeper than I meant to. Simply the memory of her laugh, her pretty smile, her gentle teasing made me smile.

"Edward, you're making me sick again," Jasper warned. He and Alice laughed at me. I growled. This was not entertaining.

It was time to admit it.

I was infatuated with a beautiful, intelligent, funny, understanding, warm, caring human girl. This was the most dangerous thing I could have done in regards to Bella Swan, but with all my worries about self-control and restraint I had not thought to keep myself from falling in love with her.

Damn.

Carlisle was right.


	7. Magnet

_So I would choose to be with you _

_That's if the choice was mine to make. _

_But you can make decisions too _

_And you can have this heart to break._

Billy Joel-'And So It Goes'

* * *

The revelation I had while running into the mountains produced two reactions. The first was a feeling of unimaginable euphoria. 

Love.

I knew what it felt like to love my family. I knew what it felt like to be loved by them in return. But this was completely different. This was something that could not be described accurately in any language. I knew several of them and each seemed inadequate. To know what this was finally, to understand my ever-growing fascination with her and comprehend that the way her smile affected me was not a sick fixation but _love_, was a relief.

The second feeling was worry. I had nothing to offer her but my love. Other than that I could only give her constant danger. Standing in the same room as her was hard enough; I could only imagine how difficult it would be to be closer to her. It would be infinitely safer for me to keep my distance from her and ignore my love for her.

But I was beginning to realize that as strong as I was in regards to other things in my life—abstaining from human blood, keeping myself in check, not revealing my true identity to the population at large—when it came to Bella I was weak. I knew what I wanted. As soon as I came to the conclusion that I was in love with her it was all over. My kind are steadfast. Once we make a decision it is done and cannot be undone. I loved Bella. Carlisle was right about one thing—that single moment had taken me from simply being intrigued to being irrevocably in love with her. The way she smiled, the way she laughed, the sound of her voice, the color of her eyes…the list only went on. There was not a single thing about her I didn't think of as exquisite or perfect.

All my thinking about her and her magnificence only led to more teasing from Alice and Jasper. Every time I felt the least bit elated at the thought of seeing her, Jasper felt it and found it necessary to tell his wife. They would both get on my case about my little human love affair. I admit that I felt bad for Jasper at first because he had to deal with the swell of emotions—that was until he teased me for about half a day. By that time my happiness was being evenly matched with my annoyance.

"Oh for God's sake, Edward, just go back. You've hunted plenty. If you don't go back to her soon I swear I will become physically ill," Jasper exclaimed after I had another moment of inward glee over Bella's perfection. I growled at him but then grinned and nodded. Before either he or Alice could say another word I was off running in the direction of the house. I would clean myself up and change—it would do no good to show up in shredded clothes, covered in blood—and then I would go to Bella. It was just after ten in the morning the day I told Bella I would see her. I was sure she wouldn't be all that upset if I showed up a little early. I hoped she wouldn't, at least.

When I arrived home I flew up the stairs without speaking to anyone and immediately got into the shower. With the dirt and blood thoroughly rinsed from my body I jumped out and rushed into clean clothes, ignoring the discarded ones that sat on my floor. I was sure Esme would scold me later for leaving them there, but for the moment I was so wrapped up in excitement I could hardly think beyond Bella.

Could I convince her to love me in return? Could she ever care about a creature as disgusting and monstrous as me? Was it possible for an angel to love a monster? If she did not love me I would try to understand. I would not be overbearing, or force her to spend time with me. I would respect her wishes as I had told her I would. But I knew that there would never be another. Something about her had gotten hold of a part of me and no matter how long I lived she would keep it. It was hers now. I was ready to forfeit myself to her every whim if only to see that smile or know her happiness. That was enough for me.

How had this happened? I didn't remember deciding to give in so completely. But when it came down to it, these things were never conscious decisions. _These moments are never intentional._ Carlisle had tried to tell me days before that this was coming. He had tried to inform me of what was going to occur. Those few moments with Bella had done this to me. It didn't make any sense. How could a few moments, less than a minute all told, cause such a profound reaction in me? In a matter of days I had gone from finding ways to keep from killing her to finding ways to charm her and make her want me the way I wanted her—the way a man and a woman _should_ want each other. There was nothing unnatural about some of the feelings I had for her. Some of them were purely human, purely the wants of a man for the woman he loved. To feel her body against mine as she lay wrapped in my embrace, the gentle caress of her hands, her warm smooth skin under my hands, her soft lips touching mine…the list was practically endless.

But there were several problems with this. The first and most pressing was that it was dangerous for me to be close enough for any of those things to occur. If she were to reach out and touch me I would be forced to clench my jaw and ride out the physical pain that accompanied the needs for her blood. Even though the feel of her skin would give me the most pleasure it was possible to feel it would come with a price. If the price was only my discomfort I could bear that knowing that it was well worth the pain and frustration for the feel of her touch. If that price ever extended past my own being it was unlikely I could ever forgive myself. Her life was too precious to ever have put in danger because of my wants.

The second problem was whether or not Bella returned my affections, or if she ever could. I wanted to believe that she could feel the same way about me as I did about her, that those moments had taken her by surprise and caused a reaction like my own. But what if they hadn't? What if she did not love me, care about me at all? What if I was like her friend Jack, nothing more than a friend and sometimes a brother? If that were the case I would have to go away from here. I would not be able to stand seeing her and knowing that I couldn't have her. The idea of her being with someone else made me as close to being physically ill as it was possible for me to be. She wasn't mine. I could not lay claim to her as my mate in any way, but I already felt like she was. What would I do if she refused me? If she told me that she did not wish to spend time with me, be with me in any way, could I survive? Even if I left this town and left her to have a life without me I would forever be incomplete. She had a piece of me. I didn't think I could ever get it back. I didn't _want_ it back. It belonged with her now. _I_ belonged with her now. If she would have me.

These problems were what I thought of when I made my way to her house. I did not drive there, wanting to feel the partial physical release I got from running. I let myself go as fast as I could through those woods, taking me to Bella at a greater speed than I had ever achieved before. I had never had somewhere I wanted to be so much as with her right then.

When I saw her house through the forest I slowed myself, mentally preparing for this next encounter. She was sure to see the difference in my demeanor. I was certain that my behavior would be different enough for her to notice. Would she know what it was that had changed? Would she be able to see the sudden love that had sprung inside me?

I went to her front door and knocked. I knew she was home. I could hear her heart beating from where I was. Her slow steps toward the door seemed to take forever. When she opened it she looked surprised but pleasantly so.

"Oh, so you use doors now?" she asked, stepping back to let me inside. I remembered the flowers and the card I left her and laughed.

"Well I thought one home intrusion was enough for this week. Knocking on the door seemed much more polite," I replied with a grin. She hardly looked amused.

"How did you manage to get inside, anyway?" she inquired. She was walking into her kitchen and I followed her there. She had been sitting at the table reading the paper, drinking a glass of water. She sat down again and motioned for me to do the same.

"The window was open."

"You got in through the window? How, there isn't anything to climb up on the side of the house."

I laughed again.

"Silly Bella, I didn't climb. I jumped."

She stared at me for a long moment. Her eyes narrowed.

"So you expect me to believe that you jumped into my second story window without any help and managed not to make any noise, leave me flowers and then jump back out without my knowledge?"

I nodded. She rolled her eyes.

"Vampires," she muttered. I laughed again. She seemed to have accepted and adjusted to the truth much faster and with more ease than I thought she would.

"Did you like the flowers then?" I asked, taking a seat across the table from her. She nodded.

"They were lovely. The note with them was particularly amusing. I should hope I am better looking than a werewolf, if you found that attractive I would assume there was something very wrong with you."

We both laughed then. The sound of her laughter, proof of her happiness in that moment was more beautiful than every symphony ever created. It was more moving than the most inspired poetry or uplifting speeches given. I would never tire of that sound.

"What?" she asked suddenly. I hadn't realized I had been staring at her. I tried to quickly think of a lie that would be believable as to why I had been looking at her so intently, but unfortunately I had none. Before I could apologize for it though she simply smiled.

"So besides jumping through windows and being a master of breaking and entering, what other cool vampire powers do you have?" she asked with a lilt of amusement in her voice.

"Well I believe that yesterday I already told you that I don't turn into a bat or fly or sleep in coffins. More or less I am just a much stronger, much faster, far more durable version of a human being."

"How strong?" she asked curiously. I noticed the smile in her eyes. I grinned back at her.

"Bella, I am not sure how to quantify my strength. It isn't as though I could tell you how many pounds I could lift or something," I explained. She quirked an eyebrow.

"Well why not?"

"Because it would be more like tons, and to my knowledge there is no place on earth where I could accurately measure how many tons I could lift as of this current moment."

Her eyes widened.

"I don't believe you," she said. I laughed and then smiled.

"Would you like a demonstration?" I asked. Her eyes narrowed but then she nodded. I motioned for her to follow me. We went out her front door in silence and then through the woods behind her house. It was slow going with Bella because she was human first of all, and second because I finally realized what she had meant by 'coordination challenged'.

There was not a single tree root sticking up that she didn't manage to trip over. A leaf would blow by her and it would ruin her almost nonexistent balance. I was tempted so often to just scoop her up and carry her to our destination but I knew that would be over stepping our bounds. So I watched as she almost fell over numerous times. I tried to count at first, but it happened so often that I was unable to keep track as the minutes went by.

Finally after almost an hour of walking—something that would have taken me mere seconds if I had been able to simply run with her as I wished to—we reached the spot I wanted to find. It was a secluded spot, between her house and mine. There were no houses close by thus no people to see what was happening. At this spot were three very large oak trees. Two of them were still thriving but one of them—the biggest one that reached probably fifty feet in the air and almost six feet around—was dying.

"Here we are," I said grandly gesturing to the three trees. Bella looked at me skeptically.

"You wanted to show me trees? I thought you were demonstrating how strong you are," she said dryly. I grinned. I walked over to the biggest, oldest tree there and with some effort, though not all I could have exerted, I lifted it from the ground and threw it across the small clearing. It landed with a deafening thud that shook the ground. I should have known Bella would fall from the vibrations that were going through the ground under her feet. She landed unceremoniously on her butt and looked even more shocked than the second before. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

"You just _threw a tree!_" she exclaimed, pointing across the clearing to my handiwork.

"I told you, Bella."

"A really really _big_ tree!" she continued. I smiled wider at her.

"You're the one who challenged me to prove my strength," I reminded her. She simply continued to stare, still sitting on the ground, seemingly unable to get up.

"_You just threw a tree!_" she repeated, almost more in disbelief than before. I nodded and laughed, waiting for her to realize she was not hallucinating. I walked over to her and brushed my hands off on my pants before reaching out to help her up. She stared at my hand for a long moment as though she was unsure as to what to do with it.

"I wont hurt you," I whispered and she looked up into my eyes as she extended her own hand and placed it gently in mine.

The second her flesh touched me I was lost, completely gone within a different world where nothing at all mattered but the warmth of her skin, the silken texture of it as I grasped her hand as I pulled her to her feet. I must have pulled her up too fast for her human reflexes to respond, because the second after she was vertical again she stumbled forward into me.

I reacted, placing my hands at her waist to hold her steady. Her small hands rested on my chest to keep her from falling over. She looked up into my face with something like shock as her cheeks turned a lovely shade of crimson and her heart stuttered and began beating quickly in her chest. Utterly gone within her chocolate gaze we stood there for a long moment, her breathing shallow and irregular, her heartbeat going almost thrice its normal rate, the scent on her skin only more potent and alluring as the moments passed. But though I was tempted—never was there a man or monster that wanted something more than I wanted her blood in those long moments—it was not her blood that made me keep her in my grasp. It was the thought of her soft warmth under my hands that kept me from letting her go.

I was _touching_ her; an archangel descended from whatever heaven there must be to produce such a being as she. I never once thought I would get the chance to feel her body. I had daydreamed about it, imagined what it would feel like if I was ever given the chance in those long hours while I watched her sleep, but never had I thought I would feel what I was feeling now. She was so close to me. Her body was nearly pressed against mine. There was less than an inch between us. It was all I could do to keep from pulling her shocked and lovely form forward and holding her against my cold body if only to experience her warmth for myself. She exuded warmth and comfort and wonder, it was not mystery as to why her very presence this close to me had me awed. But it was not simply wonder and awe that had me stuck. There was a sort of electricity that seemed to flow between us. Something like static twisted through her body and into mine and back again through each point of contact and every inch of skin that was close enough. It was like feeling a magnetic field pulling at your entire body.

She bit her bottom lip very gently as she looked up at me, not sure of what to do next. I had to do something or I was sure to explode, from either the blood lust or the wants of the man that was still a part of me. I very gently, very slowly with an immeasurable about of reluctance let go of her waist, letting my hands come to rest at my sides. Bella's hands slid off my chest and she took a shaky step back, putting distance between us.

The charge in between us had gone, leaving me feeling strangely empty. Touching someone had never made me feel so whole before. I was not aware that someone could do that to me. It was just another curiosity about Bella, another thing she did to me that I could not explain or accurately describe, but I felt with such vivid clarity sometimes I was surprised at the strength of it.

"I told you I was clumsy," she mumbled. Her face only got redder when I smiled at her little comment. She was trying to calm the moment, ease the tension between us. Had she felt that too, then? Had she experienced the same unbelievable magnetism?

"Yes, I am beginning to understand. With the interest of getting back to civilization before night falls, would you allow me to get us back to your home?" I asked. She raised an eyebrow.

"How exactly are you going to do that?" she asked, her voice a little wary. A wicked grin crossed my face.

"Let me show you?"

She looked at me for a long time and then sighed.

"Fine. But if there are any more trees involved, count me out."

"No trees, I promise. But you will have to touch me," I warned her. She made a show of rolling her eyes and sighing loudly. But then she smiled at me, the warm, beautiful smile that I loved most. I took a step toward her and knelt down, pivoting so my back was to her. I could almost feel her uncertainty.

"Climb on," I told her. For a moment nothing happened. But then she did as I asked and it was like giving someone a piggyback ride, only it felt so different with her. Her body touching mine so completely was unbelievable. I didn't know what to do for a long moment. I had forgotten what I was supposed to be doing. I held onto her legs as they wrapped around my back and told her to hold on before I started to run.

There was a tiny squeal, as suddenly she seemed to tighten all her muscles around me. I gasped as she did and hoped she didn't hear it as she buried her face in my neck. It was very hard to concentrate when she did that. The first thing was the power of her scent so close to my face as she made her sudden move. The second was the warmth, the caress of her smooth skin against mine. The unbearable heat made me shudder. I wanted more. To feel the heat of her skin against me was unbearably wonderful, I could only imagine what full skin to skin contact would feel like, held against my chest, cradled in my arms like Alice had seen in her vision, only now I was not lusting after her blood, only the touch of her body against me.

I managed to avoid hurting either of us as I ran, hard as it was to think of anything beyond the woman clinging to me with such fervor. I stopped running a few feet from the edge of the woods. When I had come to a full stop I gently pried Bella from where she was adhered to me. I set her on her feet before me. She gripped my arms to keep from falling over and I made sure that she did not find the ground again today.

"Never…again…" she panted. I couldn't help but laugh at her. When her breathing became regular again and she seemed able to stand without almost falling over I let go of her. She swayed for a moment and then stood still.

"Why didn't you tell me you were about to try and _kill me_?" she demanded. She reached out and swatted me on the arm, from the tiny bit of impact she must have tried to hit me pretty hard.

"OUCH!" she exclaimed, looking at her hand.

"I swear if my other hand is broken I am going to kill you," she said, rubbing at her good hand that was now apparently injured.

"You could try," I said. She glared at me and stomped off in the direction of her house. I followed after her, attempting to control my laughter. She was trying desperately to be angry with me.

"Bella," I said softly. She stopped in the middle of her back yard and turned to me.

"You tricked me, Edward."

"I did no such thing. I simply asked if you would like to get home before midnight. You agreed. No trickery there," I reminded her. She looked at me hard as if she was trying to figure out some hole in my argument. We both knew there was none.

"Didn't I tell you to warn me the next time you were about to engage in a behavior that would threaten my life?" she asked with a glower. I sighed.

"In no way did I put your life at risk, at least not any more than I usually do. My very presence threatens your life, Bella, running was no more endangering you than any other moment I am in your company," I stated. She still looked unconvinced.

"We were moving so fast things were blurred. How could you possibly know where things were? How could you avoid things if you _can't see them_?" she asked.

"Silly Bella, just because you can't see them doesn't mean I can't. My senses and reflexes are far better than yours. What your eyes saw as a blur mine saw as clear shapes. I can adjust to seeing as I run at great speeds," I assured her. She sighed and crossed her arms. Then she turned and continued to walk back into her house.

"I still refuse to do that ever again," she said as she opened her front door and proceeded back into her kitchen. She sat at her table as she had been earlier and looked at me expectantly, as though there was something I was supposed to do or say. At first I had no idea what to do. Then I remembered that I had a question to get answered.

"Bella, I have been outstandingly honest with you so far, would you agree?" I asked.

"I suppose. What is your point?"

"I was wondering if you could perhaps return the favor and answer a question for me."

She looked up at me hesitantly and then nodded.

"I was hoping that you would shed some light on one of two subjects. The first being your presence at my house the night we met. The second being exactly what it is that is bothering you. I know you told me that you couldn't answer the first question and that there was nothing to tell about the second, but I was still wondering if you would be so gracious as to indulge me. I have a feeling that those statements were not completely true. Seeing as I have shared quite a secret with you I feel as though it would only be fair that you do the same for me. If we are to be friends, things must be equal, don't you agree?"

Her face contorted into an expression of worry and then of uncertainty. She bit her lip again and sighed.

"The reason I was outside your house is sort of a long story," she said quietly.

"I have time," I told her, sitting across the table from her.

"I had no intention of coming upon your house. I was just running. I had to run, I had to go. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. So I just went. Which as I am sure you can imagine did not work out so well with my lack of coordination and balance sort of inhibited my ability to get anywhere very fast or without injury. I got lost. I just kept going. I couldn't…I couldn't even begin to think about stopping or going back. And then I stumbled upon your family and Alice's wedding."

Her eyes looked at anything but me. She was afraid of this truth, afraid of my knowing one of her secrets. She remained silent for a long moment. I reached my hand over the table and tilted her chin up. Her eyes looked into mine and there was such fear, such pain and regret. For the time being the burn of her skin, the scent of her blood, anything but that ache in her eyes was meaningless.

"What were you running from?" I asked quietly, never taking my hand from her face. She closed her eyes tightly and a single tear slipped down her perfect cheek. Her lip trembled. When she opened her eyes again they were empty, hollow of the emotions that had filed them moments before.

"I killed someone."


	8. Confessions

"Oh, Bella," I murmured, dropping my hand away from her. I didn't think she would want to be touched. She closed her eyes and more tears spilled over her face. Even though I knew that she might not want to be touched, even though I knew she was in pain now, even though I knew that her forced confession and my presence might be a reminder of something that haunted her in her sleep, I got up from my seat and went to her, kneeling in front of her chair.

Her eyes opened again and without pause I placed my hands on her face, holding it between them, trying to give her some semblance of comfort. She only sobbed harder. I wanted to find the words that would express that what she was feeling now—pain, fear, regret, the helplessness that accompanied knowing it was impossible to go back and change the past—was something that was all too familiar to me. The darker chapters of my past, the ones that I hid because of the bloodshed I caused, the pain and death I unleashed when I unleashed the animal inside of me, caused a similar feeling in myself. I knew each and every way to feel regret. I knew the words remorse, guilt, and shame like they were my name. There was no way to feel disgrace that I had not experienced. Causing death was in and of itself a shameful act. But thinking that there was a justification for my actions, that I was somehow in the _right_ because of the way I chose my victims made it even more unforgivable. There was no repentance that could every absolve me. I could say the lords prayer continuously until the day I died and there would never be a chance I would be forgiven.

To say I could understand what she was going through was an understatement.

"You must think I am absolutely disgusting," she whispered, her voice slightly broken with her tears. Still holding her face in my hands I turned it so she was looking at me, her eyes locked with mine.

"You are the antithesis of disgusting. That is the absolute _last_ word I would ever choose to describe you. You are utterly magnificent, an angel if one ever existed. Never has there been a creature as indescribably glorious and radiant as you, and I doubt that there ever will be again. You are kind and warm and innocent. There is nothing that even _resembles_ disgusting about you."

Her eyes did not leave mine as I spoke, neither did my hands leave her face. I was afraid to let her go. The words that came out of my mouth seemed alien, like I was not the one saying them. That admission, though not complete, was enough to interrupt her heartbeat. She opened her mouth to say something, but it took a moment to get the words out.

"I was walking home," she said. I didn't realize what she meant for a moment, but then it dawned on me she was telling me the story behind her confession. I dropped my hands from her face to her hands that sat in her lap. She clasped them hard and then continued to speak.

"I wasn't far from my house. I heard this awful screaming. I thought someone was hurt. There is this…alley a few blocks away, I don't know if you have seen it. That's where the screaming was. I went to find out what was wrong; I thought…there was a girl. This poor girl and a man was…hurting her. She was crying and screaming and in such pain. So I tried to help. I ran up to them and I shoved him hard, trying to get him away from her. He only stumbled. And then he saw me and shoved me to the ground, that's when I fractured my wrist. He thought I was knocked out so he went back to…the girl. She kicked him and struggled and something fell out of his pocket. It was a knife.

"He didn't realize what had happened. He didn't know it was on the ground or that I was still conscious. So…I picked it up. And I made him stop hurting that girl. I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't mean for him to die I just thought he would _stop_ and then we could call the police. But when he fell on the ground…there was so much blood. He was…choking on it. He wasn't breathing. And then he…died. He _died_, Edward. I killed him. It was an accident, but I killed him. And instead of calling the police, or waiting to see if the girl was okay, I just ran. I ran as fast as I could. And I could hear her begging me not to leave her alone, but I couldn't stay. Tell me, what about _that_ is good? I killed a man and I left his victim behind because _I_ was afraid. There is nothing―"

Before she finished her sentence I pulled her down onto the floor into an embrace. I knew it was crossing our boundaries and I didn't care. I knew it was dangerous, but that did not matter. I knew I would not kill her in that moment. There were more important things that my hunger. Things like Bella, this poor girl who had given herself a lifetime of guilt for trying to help someone. Whoever said no good deed goes unpunished had no idea how true it was.

The words she spoke in her sleep made sense now. I understood why she would call out and beg not to be alone. She was reliving that night, that horror, over and over in her mind, trying to find some solution to it that would never come. She could not change that past. It had happened, she had ended a life. Nothing she could do would ever be able to rewind time and alter that fact. So her mind replayed those terrors, forcing her to remember the things she had done and experience guilt even in her sleep.

"Bella, please, I want to tell you something, and I want you to only listen and understand before you argue with me, do you understand?" I asked quietly. I felt her nod against my shoulder. Even though I didn't want to I leaned away from her warmth in order to look into her face as I spoke my next words.

"A human life is a precious thing. I understand the shame that accompanies ending a life, the regret you feel for killing him. What you must understand, you _must_ understand, is that the taking of a life is not always the sinful, devious act it seems. You had no intention of killing that man; only of helping the woman he was hurting. Your purpose was not one of malice or harm. You only wanted to aid the woman you heard in pain. I can see why you would feel badly about killing him. I am glad you do; if you had no remorse I would fear for your humanity."

"I left her alone. I left her _behind_," she argued. I shook my head and sighed.

"You never get used to it, taking a life. You _shouldn't_ get used to it. But the first time is undeniably the hardest. You feel guilt as a manifest object, something real, tangible, _painful_. Knowing for certain you had killed that man, seeing his body as he died, would have triggered something in you that blocks out all reason. It makes logical choices seem nonexistent. You don't think. You can only react. You did what your body told you to do. What else was there?"

"I could have stayed, I could have helped her, I could have made sure she wasn't _alone_, I could have…I could have…" her words faded into nothing. She just looked into my eyes for a very long time.

"What did you mean when you said the first time is the hardest?" she asked finally. Never in my life had I been so afraid to speak. Words never seemed like such a daunting thing before that moment, but at that time I could hardly breathe, let alone form speech. How could I tell her about my past? How could I ever hope to explain what I had done to this seraph? This existence seemed punishment enough, but only a creature such as she could make me feel more tortured than I already did. But I knew now more than ever that there must be a God; only divinity could create a being such as Bella.

"I have not always been the way I am now. I did not always…sustain myself in my current manner. There was a time in my past when I killed. It was only ever someone who deserved it in my mind. A rapist, a murderer—someone who was evil enough as to deserve death. I gave them death by taking their blood to keep myself alive.

"It was only after years of guilt and remorse that I returned to my father, to Carlisle, and begged him to forgive me. He did, and he took me back without question. The love and absolution my father offered were, and still are, incomprehensible, but they will never be enough. I could never do enough to be forgiven for the things I have done, the lives I have taken. I could justify it with all the rationalizations I wish, but I heard their thoughts while they died. I could listen to their fear and pain and remorse. It was not my right to judge or punish them. I gave them death for their sins, and have received an eternity's share of shame in exchange for my deeds."

Bella's face was blank as I spoke. It was one of the many times I wished I could hear what she was thinking. If only I could know her reaction to my words. For minutes after her face remained stoic, almost purposefully vacant of emotion. It was maddening when I knew that something was going on in her mind and I could not tell what it was.

"I have another question," she mumbled after a while.

"Anything," I replied. I only wanted her to _speak_ to me, let alone be interested in me enough to ask me a question. If there was anything I could say to her to help her understand that I was not as I had been in those years I would gladly say it a hundred times over.

"You said…you said something about hearing people's thoughts…what…what is that?"

"My father has a theory about that. Sometimes when a person is changed they bring with them a certain talent they had in their human life. I was extraordinarily intuitive as a human, and because of that I am able to read people's thoughts as they think them. It is an particularly obnoxious, yet useful talent to have."

"You can read my mind?" she asked, her voice betraying her shock and what sounded almost like embarrassment. I sighed.

"No, Bella. Along with your unusually tempting scent, your mind is another curiosity. I can concentrate all I want on your mind, but I don't get a single thing. You are a blank to me."

"Well that is a relief," she sighed, standing finally.

"To you, perhaps. To me, I find it outlandishly obnoxious. When I tell you things, like the fact that I am a vampire, or the darker parts of my past, I wish I could know what you think about them. It is more frustrating than you can understand. After so long _knowing_ what a person's reaction would be to something I said or did, to not know, to not be able to understand how someone works is more maddening than I thought it was possible to be."

I joined her in standing and we remained at distance from each other that I was unsure about. It was too close to be casual, too far to be intimate. I would not blame her for being afraid of me now, though she did not seem to be.

"What would you like to know?" she asked, taking a step back and sitting down in her chair again. That was a very clear sign that the moment where I had held her was over. Those minutes when she had sat in my arms were glorious, more so than I thought minutes could be, the way they dragged on at times. Those minutes though, the ones where she had been in my arms, surprised at my sudden need to be near her and give her comfort, had been the best I had ever experienced.

"How are you taking this? You have seemed extraordinarily accepting of my being a vampire. The fact that I can read minds does not appear to have fazed you, though that may have something to do with the fact that I cannot read yours. But you have yet to make any comment on the admission I made of my past."

For a long moment after my last statement she said nothing. Her eyes remained on the table, as though she was reading the paper that sat in front of her. I knew she wasn't. I did not have to read her mind to know she was figuring something out.

"Your past is your own, something you cannot change now, no matter how much you may want to. I understand that. You understand why your choices were wrong. You know killing those people, no matter what they had done, was not a good decision. It was not a good way to live. The man who killed those people is not the one sitting with me now. I have nothing to fear," she said quietly. Her eyes met mine and had her last words not scared me beyond belief I would have been completely lost within that gaze.

How could she possibly say she had nothing to fear? She was sitting across the table from a monster, a beast that could kill her before she could blink. She could not run away or fight me off. No weapon she could have in this household would harm me in any way. Even if she did not call to me as she did she would have been in danger merely being in my general area. But adding that damnable scent to the mix, taking into account the fact that no blood would ever smell as sweet to me as hers did only made her danger infinitely worse. She had _everything_ to fear when she was near me—pain, death, exposure to the worst possible trauma and horrible experiences a person could ever live through. There was not a single minute she was safe with me. And yet she said she was not afraid. I did not think it was possible, but I was more confused by her than ever.

"Bella, you may be the most terrifying creature this world has ever seen, are you aware of that?" I asked. She stared at me in obvious disbelief and then laughed.

"_I_ am terrifying? What about you? _You're_ the mythological monster, not me. What could possibly be scary about me?" she inquired, still laughing.

"At every turn you shock me. I have told you that my very presence endangers your life, but you seem not to care. I tell you that I have killed humans like yourself—though they were admittedly much less innocent as you—that I fed from them, swallowed their blood to sustain myself and yet you say you have nothing to fear. Were danger to bite you I doubt you would even know what it was. What will it take for you to respond properly to me and push me away?"

Her face went from pleasant to troubled.

"Why do you assume the proper response to you is to push you away?" she asked back.

"What part about my being a monster are you missing here? I could kill you before you could scream. And yet you sit here with me, chatting like―"

"Friends?"

The smile returned to her face.

"Bella, I am being serious," I told her.

"So am I. Edward, you seem to think that your past, what you are, your mind reading abilities, is going to make me afraid of you. But how can I be? All I see is the man who fights his nature to be near me, a man who resists constant temptation to spend time with me, a man who keeps back the darker parts of him to keep me safe, a man who tries to make me happy, tries to relieve my grief and guilt. What is there to fear in that? If anything I fear myself for being selfish enough to want you to keep doing these things that clearly hurt you. All I can do is thank you."

"For what?"

"Reaching out to me. Not letting go even when you found out things about me that are less than blameless or angelic. Being honest. Being as strong as you are, enough to stay with me, talk to me, make me feel like I am not so alone. I haven't…we haven't known each other for very long. We met, officially at least, yesterday. But already…I'm afraid of how connected I feel to you."

How could I tell her that while I didn't understand the depth of our connection, while I shared in that fear of our sudden attachment, that confession brought me more joy than I thought I could ever experience?

"While we are on the subject of ridiculous expressions of gratitude, may I extend a thanks to you then?" I asked.

"For torturing you with my scent and nearly ruining your sister's wedding?"

"For not running. For not pushing me away, even though I think—_know_—you should. For demonstrating what strength and bravery are. The list goes on. I don't think you want to hear it all."

_Thank you for giving me something to live for_, I wanted to say. _For showing me what love is, letting me experience it for myself, even if it is utterly unrequited._

"You're right. That was a ridiculous expression of gratitude."

I laughed. She joined me. I did not know how she managed to take these moments we had, intense, deep, powerful moments, and diffuse the tension that followed them. If I had come into this conversation now I would have thought this was easy chatter between old friends instead of long discussion that started with the admission of guilt for a homicide.

"Bella, I do have one question, and I hope you don't become upset with me for asking it."

She said nothing, only waited for the question.

"Do you know what happened to that man in the alley, or the girl even?"

She sighed and then nodded.

"The woman was never found. I assume she just went home and didn't report her attack to the police. The man though was discovered the next day. His death was ruled a homicide. The knife was never found because I…I held on to it. I forgot I was holding it until I was already in the woods and then I threw it. It's an open investigation. The police are following up on leads."

I nodded but said nothing. I was torn. If she went to the police and told them what had happened there was a chance she would be let go because it was a justifiable homicide. But there was also a chance they would not and she would be convicted of murder and put in prison. Prison was no place for my lovely Bella. She was already tortured enough, she did not need the hardships of a penitentiary to add to her hardships.

When had she become _my_ Bella? Somewhere between her admission that her heart was burdened with some of the same troubles as mine and admitting my transgressions I had begun to connect to her more fiercely than I had before. She was stronger than I thought a human woman could be. She showed such courage in her deeds, not only in sitting here with me now, but in trying to help a stranger in need when she could have easily ignored her plight. It was her heart that drew me to her. She thought so much of others and cared for people so greatly she risked her own well being for strangers.

She risked her life for me every second I was here with her. And yet she showed extraordinary bravery in doing so. She was, I realized, truly as fearless as she claimed to be. My presence did not scare her, even when I spoke of my past and my desire to kill her. There was something so undeniably beautiful about how much she cared, how fearless she was or tried to be. It amazed me. _She_ amazed me.

I only loved her more for it.

As terrifying as her lack of fear was, as scared as her lack of self-preservation made me, I had nothing but love for this girl. Did I sometimes want to shake some sense into her? Certainly. Did confessions such as she did not fear me make only worry more about her welfare? Of course. But that stubborn refusal to admit the danger she was in, the ferocity with which she cared for people, even when it endangered her was what made her wonderful. The sheer awe inspiring beauty she was, the pure astonishment she produced in me every time I _looked_ at her, was nothing compared to how astounded I was with her personality.

There was a fierceness behind her gentle exterior. She killed a man to protect a victim. Her caring nature had given way to a harder, stronger more vicious side that I was sure was not often seen. That strength, though masked behind her warm, kind temperament, was there and it was severe. Such might in such a tiny little creature. Though I should have known it was possible—Alice was a miniscule thing and yet she was ferocious when she needed to be.

I supposed it was the frailty of her kind that was misleading. It didn't seem possible that such a fragile thing could house such power. It was possible for a little thing to be forceful, as I had seen with my newest sister. And yet Bella seemed to be just as strong as she—if not physically then in sheer will.

But I could not tell her how amazed I was. My incredulity that someone like her could even exist was not something I could share. The small, incomplete admission I had made earlier where I told her how wonderful she was could have given me away. It was as close to saying that I loved her as I could get without fully confessing that fact. I could not tell her. My love was no gift. It was a curse. There was nothing noble about what my affections would bring her. Only danger, only death. I could not promise her happiness or security, only my devotion and endearment. The promise of undying love had a very literal meaning in my case, seeing as I would never die.

"Precious Bella, fear not, I will help you find your way through this no matter what happens," I said softly. She reached her hand across the table and placed it atop mine. I fought to control the shudder that ran through me as her skin connected with mine. I met her eyes and saw a gentle smile within them.

"How is it that even though we hardly know each other you are the best friend I have?" she asked, shaking her head slowly.

"I would not say we hardly know each other. In fact I would say we know each other fairly well by now, at least we know those things about each other that are rarely known by others. I think we can safely move on from hardly knowing each other, to knowing each other. Whether or not you wish to move on to the next stage, knowing each other well, is completely your choice."

"Do you want to know me well?"

I nodded, not chancing words at that moment. There was a small chance that when she asked me questions such as those, ones where it was possible to reveal how I felt about her, I would somehow give in and tell her how I loved her.

"What if you find you don't like who I am?"

"Impossible," I replied. I knew that would not happen. There could never be a part of her I would not love. There was no confession she could make that would cause me to love her any less. Quite the opposite in fact, the things she kept hidden for fear I would reject her for them only made my connection to her stronger. She had killed a man. Though it was not something I ever wished for her to do, nor was the aftermath on her psyche something I would ever wish for her to experience, it was something that drew us closer together. It was a gruesome truth about us, and yet that horror connected us, fortified the bond between us into something stronger than it had been before.

How strange it was that death connected us. It was death that brought us together in the first place. It was death made her a mystery. And now it was death that made us closer. The vampire and the human. The predator and its prey. The bible quoted passages about lions lying down with lambs yet I never thought such things could be true.

Perhaps that was why it was in Revelations. It took several to believe such things could happen.

"One more question, Bella," I murmured. She nodded.

"You said you ran because you were afraid. What were you afraid of?"

"Myself. It never occurred to me that I could take a life. I never thought I could kill someone. And when it happened, I watched him die. I saw him draw his last breath. And when he finally died, I knew it was because of me. I knew the reason he was no longer living was because I had taken that away from him. I was terrified. I didn't think I was capable of an atrocity like that. I was running from the truth of what I had done. I couldn't face it. His death was proof that I'm not who I thought. That I am able to do horrible things. I was so afraid to suddenly realize that truth that I ran from it. And I kept running. I ran until I had to stop—until Carlisle stopped me. If he hadn't, I'm not sure I ever would have stopped on my own."

A moment of silence passed between us. There was an understanding in that silence, a knowing between us both. I could empathize with that fear of yourself and your abilities.

"That you are capable of horrible things does not make you a horrible person. Our abilities do not define us. There is nothing horrible about you."

"How can you say that when you know what I have done?" she asked. I flipped my hand over and clasped her tiny one inside it.

"Because I know what you have done. But I also know who you are. They are not the same thing. You told me the man I am and the man that murdered people were not the same man. Those deeds are not who I am. Your misdeeds are not who you are either. I promise you, Bella, there are worse things you could have done, worse things you could _be_, than a caring woman whose selfless actions caused the death of a man and whose high moral standards led her to fear herself because of the things she had no choice but to do."

She laughed bitterly and rolled her eyes, but I also saw a slight scarlet flush creep across her face. My words had reassured and complimented her. She wanted my honest opinion of her and she had gotten it. I only wanted her to understand that there was nothing for her to be afraid of. If she could get over her fear for me I could not understand why she would be so terrified of herself.

"Edward…while we are being so honest with each other, I feel as though there is something else you should know," she whispered, her eyes never leaving mine.

"Anything, Bella, you can tell me anything."

She opened her mouth and began to speak. But before she could utter so much as a word there was a sharp knocking on the front door. I let my mind identify who it was before she even rose to answer the knock. She gave me an apologetic look and stood.

_Edward._

Alice's voice rang out in my mind. I growled at being interrupted but went with Bella to the door.

"My sister," I explained as we walked together. She nodded and then the door opened itself, Alice being ever impatient could not wait for Bella's human paced walking.

She smiled briefly at the two of us when she opened the door.

"Hello, Alice," Bella said kindly with a slight smile.

"Hello, Bella darling. While I am usually all for pleasantries, I fear at this juncture we don't really have time. We have to get back to the house. Yes, Edward, that means Bella, too," she said quickly, answering my question before I even asked it. I looked at her, asking another question silently.

_A vision._ She thought at me. She kept me from her mind. I could not see what she had. That only made me worried.

"Come, everything will make sense soon enough. Just trust me, okay?" she pleaded. I looked into her ocher eyes. I had no choice. With a sigh I turned to Bella.

"Care to come along?" I asked with a grin. She shrugged and then smiled back. Then her smile faded.

"Wait. Will we have to do that whole running thing again?" she asked, her voice and face very stern. I nodded and she sighed and rubbed her temples.

"If you kill me I am coming back as a ghost and haunting you until the end of time, you got that?" she asked. I nodded and stepped in front of her and out the door and down a step so she could climb on my back easier.

_Running again?_ Alice inquired through her thoughts. She quirked an eyebrow and I glowered at her. She laughed inside her mind but turned her back and said nothing out loud. Bella climbed on my back and without hesitation after making sure she was securely holding on, we began running. We made it to my house in under a minute. The wonderment I felt having her so close did not escape me this time, as it had not the first.

When we got to my house I set her on her feet. She seemed steadier this time than she had the first and was quicker to recover her balance. I was holding her steady as Alice stood beside us. When Bella was again sturdy on her feet she looked up at me and smiled warmly. I smiled in return, basking in that glorious expression.

Alice's thoughts, sent deliberately to me shook me from my happiness.

_Tell her, Edward. Tell her soon, or you may not get the chance._


	9. Precious

It was hard to think beyond what Alice had just thought at me. Even as I watched Bella walk into my house, as I watched Esme and Carlisle greet her with warmth, Jasper with careful distance, Emmett with a grin and Rosalie with a death glare, I could not help but wonder why she would say I might not get the chance. She wanted me to tell Bella that I loved her because there was not much time left. But why would she assume that? What had she seen that would lead her to that conclusion?

"Bella, I am assuming by the haste of your arrival that Alice did not inform you of what is going on?" Carlisle asked. She shook her head. Carlisle nodded and then looked to me. Bella did the same. Her face was calm but curious, an adorable expression. It was all I could do to keep from taking the few steps between us and gathering her in my arms. I felt protective of her, defensive of this little human in our midst. Even the snide remarks Rose was making in her mind angered me. I knew she was not mine, but I could not help the feelings in me that welled up at the thought of someone hurting her in any way. It was because of that I found Alice's enigmatic comment to be horrifyingly unwelcome.

"Well?" I asked, being the only one out of the loop. No one was thinking about the news, they were mostly thinking about Bella, the odd man out in this group, the only one who was not like us.

"Exposure. I had a vision of exposure. It was unclear what exactly happened, but people saw. The Volturi came here, wanting to kill those who had seen along with Bella after they found out about her. Of course you refused to let that happen, and well, things got out of hand," Alice explained.

"Show me," I demanded. She sighed but then called the vision up from her memory.

_The Volturi. And not just the guard, but the three brothers, here to take care of the situation. Not many people had seen—only five all told—but that was enough. One of them worked for a newspaper. She had reported on the strange happenings the next day. Somehow the word had spread to Italy. The brothers came to visit Carlisle as well as make sure the exposure was limited and taken care of._

_But when the full story was heard, they realized there was one more human that needed to be eliminated. Bella._

"_She knows our secret, Carlisle. She must be killed," Caius said. I was there, shaking with anger and fear for my Bella._

"_You cannot just kill her!" I shouted even though I knew shouting at the Volturi was not the most well thought out idea. All three of the brothers and the guard turned to me. Aro smiled._

"_You know our laws, Edward. You seem to have become attached to her, you could always change her," he stated. I shook my head. Aro shrugged._

"_Then her life is forfeit."_

_Some of the guard—Felix, Alec and Demitri—descended upon where I was standing with Bella. I growled and they merely smiled. They would kill me if I got in the way._

_So be it._

The vision ended and I felt like the breath was gone from my lungs. Lovely Bella, taken from the life she deserved because of a law instated by vampires who knew nothing of her. They would kill her without a second though, destroying me in the process if I would not step aside. I never would. Even with Jane's torture set upon me there was no way I would simply watch as they murdered the woman I loved. Even if she didn't know it.

So that was why Alice told me to tell her soon.

"When?" I asked. She shrugged.

"I don't know exactly when. A week, a month, I can't be sure. There weren't any telling factors. But it won't be long before it comes to pass," she murmured. I sighed, covering my face with my hands. This was so much more than she deserved to be involved in. I had done this to her. In telling her my secret I had condemned her to death. This was my fault. I should have just stayed away from her like I originally planned. I knew I should not have gotten involved. I could have lived with an obsession, even an unrequited love from afar, but in revealing myself to her I had doomed her.

If Alice's vision did indeed come to pass and she was murdered I would only be satisfied if I was killed as well. Living the rest of forever knowing the only woman I would ever care for was slain because of my bad judgment would be unbearable. I would gladly die and suffer an eternity in Hell for causing the death of an angel. I would deserve it. The lives I had taken in all my years of rebellion, the murders I had committed were atrocious, but all those lives did not measure up to a tenth of the value of Bella. She was sacred and killing her would be the darkest sin imaginable. My hands would not be the ones that stole her life, but they would still be covered in her blood.

"Not to draw attention to the fact that I clearly have no idea what is going on, but could someone please explain the situation to me?" Bella asked, her voice calm but unable to mask the edge of fear. She had just heard of her impending death, she had every right to be afraid.

"Bella, in our world one of the things we must do is keep from being exposed to the general public. The existence of vampires has always been thought a myth. There is a sort of…ruling body, so to speak, in Italy that put laws in place to keep that assumption from ever being changed. They dictate that should a human be exposed to our existence in any way—accidentally noticing our strength or speed or by being told as you were—they must be eliminated to protect the greater good.

"There are not vampires roaming around monitoring these things, so every so often one or two humans may know more than they should and they are not killed because The Volturi—that ruling class—does not know about them, much as they do not know about you. But sometimes things happen, large events that expose us, or could lead to major exposure. When these things happen the Volturi send someone to take care of the problem. While we aren't sure what exactly happened to expose us here, Alice has had a vision that one of us will expose ourselves and cause a large enough disturbance to warrant a visit from the Volturi. If that were to occur it is very likely they will find you and by their own laws, kill you."

Bella's face had paled. She did not look as terrified as I thought she would, but I could tell she was afraid. I wanted to hold her, soothe her, promise not to let anyone hurt her. But how could I promise her that? If the Volturi wanted to kill her it would be hard to keep them from doing so. They were relentless. If they wanted something, they would get it, regardless of how long it took or how hard it was. If they wanted Bella there was only a slim chance they would not get to her.

Of course I would protect her with everything I had in me. I would fight each and every one of them until they were gone or death took me. My guilt that her death was of my own making and my love for her insured that she would not be taken without a fight. As I gazed at her shocked and gorgeous face I forced myself not to imagine her dead. Pale and cold, her heart no longer beating, never to open those warm eyes again, or speak in that soft, gentle voice that lulled me into such a calm every time I heard it.

How I longed to make the fear in her eyes disappear, but I had no idea how. What could I do for her now, the man that had killed her with his foolishness? She would have been so much better without me. I had tried to tell myself that. I had tried to convince myself that she should not know me in any way, let alone truly know who and what I was. Now because of my curiosity and lack of self-control I had forced her into a fate she never should have been exposed to.

So much time, thought and energy had gone into keeping myself from murdering the beauty before me. I had not spent enough time keeping my heart and mind away from her. I could control my baser impulses, the ones that called for her sweet blood with every second that passed, only strengthened when she moved or sighed. But the other impulses, the ones that were not purely the physical reaction to her scent were completely beyond my control. There was no way to rein in my feelings for her, my obsession, my love. I could not keep those in check. They had taken me over without so much as a question from my logical, responsible side.

"So I am going to die? There is nothing we can do?" she asked quietly. Before anyone else could speak, I did.

"Of course not. I will do everything I can to keep that from happening," I said gently, gazing into her eyes as I did. The fear in them seemed to lessen a bit. She believed me. I told her that I would keep her safe and she didn't doubt me in the slightest. I had just unwittingly made a promise to her I was not sure I could keep. Would she forgive me if I came up short in protecting her?

"We all will, Bella. We are not going to simply allow them to kill _anyone_, least of all a young woman who has done absolutely nothing wrong," Carlisle assured her. She smiled at him wanly, trying to match his confident expression. She could not quite do it. The smile did not reach her eyes, portraying just how unsure she was about all of this. I felt more sorry then than I ever had for a single other misdeed. Causing her sadness and fear was more of a monstrous act than any other things I had done.

I would have to save my apology for later though. For now we were with my family. Carlisle went on to explain some of the history of the Volturi, of his past and how he first came to meet them. His story was an interesting one, though I had heard it many times as he explained about himself to each of my siblings. Bella listened with fascination as he told her now, carefully paying attention to each detail about his past. There was genuine interest there; she was not just being polite. I watched her face as she listened to him speak. The changing expressions were entertaining.

When Carlisle finished his story it was nearly three in the afternoon. We were chatting casually—Rosalie and Emmett excluded because she had left and dragged Emmett along with her—when Bella's stomach protested the lack of food she had taken in today. She blushed crimson, clearly embarrassed. I felt like an idiot. How could I forget that she needed to eat?

After convincing her that she needed food and offering to take her to dinner we left my family behind at the house. Rosalie aside she was well liked. Esme had taken to her as though she was one of her children. Alice loved her from the beginning, gushing over her as though she was new sister and not a human girl who just so happened to become wrapped up in our family's affairs.

I told her we could drive this time instead of running and she seemed relieved beyond measure. While we were in the car Bella insisted that I not waste my money on her. She said she was more than capable of cooking for herself and in fact she enjoyed it, so she would rather just go home. A moment later she extended an invitation for me to stay. I accepted it warily, not because I was unsure of spending time with Bella, but because I so desperately wanted to and I knew what I would have to tell her when we were alone again.

Her kitchen seemed like a place that invoked confessions, and not necessarily ones that were good. So when we were again seated in it, a pot of pasta boiling away behind us, sauce simmering in a separate pan for her dinner, I was afraid. Fear was not an emotion I was familiar with. I never needed to fear for my safety or the safety of those I loved most. Death was not a threat, nor was starvation, poverty, illness or loss. The ones I cared about were as indestructible as I was. We had more money than we could ever spend, and thanks to Alice's gift of predicting what things would be beneficial in the future, our investments were skyrocketing. Illness could not affect my kind. There was nothing for me to be afraid of.

And then suddenly this human girl terrified me. First it was because of the challenge she presented with her scent, I feared I was going to be unable to control myself. But then as I grew attached to her I began to understand what fear truly is. Every moment I was away from her, and even some of the moments I was by her side, I worried about her safety. What if she got injured or ill? What if someone hurt her? What if her own clumsiness led to her demise? There were so many what ifs that my head ached with them as I found myself worrying about her, fussing over every detail of her life, trying to find ways to make it safer for her. One way would have been to stay out of it altogether, but it was to late for that now.

"Bella, I have some things we need to talk about," I said softly as I watched her from across the table. She nodded and I took a deep breath. The concentration of her scent was dizzying. But there was so much more on my mind that her blood at that moment that it seemed to hardly faze me.

"The Volturi are tenacious to a fault. If they find out about you and wish you dead, there will be little I could do, little any of us could do, to stop them. I want you to understand that I will protect you; I swear I will do everything in my power to keep you from being harmed. But if in the end I fail, please know that…"

My words died away. I could not tell her. I could not make my mouth say the words I wanted it to say. She stared at me, waiting to see what I was going to say.

"Please know what?" she asked, trying to encourage the words, coax them out of me with her sweet voice. I looked down at my hands and then back up at Bella, trying to find the strength somewhere in me to tell her that I loved her, that I would always love her, and if in the end I failed to protect her and keep her alive it would only be because they had killed me first.

"Sweet Bella, I am so sorry," I whispered to her. Her face contorted to one of puzzlement. She did not know what I was sorry for. I found that sad. It seemed so evident.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" she asked. I sighed.

"This is all my fault. I knew I should never have involved myself with you. I knew it was a bad idea for the both of us, but I honestly couldn't help myself. I let my careless wants rule my decisions, and now I have put you in danger. It is completely unforgivable. If it weren't for me you would not be in this situation. I could never be sorry enough. I keep trying to tell myself that I can keep you safe, that I will protect you. But what if I can't? If they killed you…I don't know what I would do," I said.

"You would go on with your life. I am just a girl, Edward."

I smiled sadly.

"How I wish that was the truth," I murmured. Her eyes met mine after a moment and she looked even more perplexed than before. It was my turn for a heart wrenching confession; one that I was sure would cause her to turn away from me, as she rightfully should.

"We met two days ago, officially, but I have been watching you for almost a week now. Before I started giving you the roses even. I needed to know about you, find out who you were. So I watched. I knew I couldn't leave you alone the first night I watched you sleep. You cried and begged not to be left alone. Never has something made me feel so sad in my entire existence. After that I was powerless to stop from coming back to see you. I needed to; in almost the same physical way I feel a need for your blood.

"At first I resented the way you made me feel. I could not stand being so fixated on someone I didn't even know. I didn't understand what was happening to me, why I couldn't stop thinking about you. I asked my father for help. I wanted him to try and figure it out for me. He gave me an answer I did not much like and yet I think I have to come to find it was true."

"And what is that?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Do you remember the first moments we saw each other?" I asked in return.

"The ones where you tried to kill me or the ones after that in your living room?" she inquired, trying to lighten the moment. But now was not the time for comedic relief. I needed to be strong, be honest. We only had so much time, and I didn't know how much of it that was.

"The latter."

She nodded and her eyes took on this far off look for a moment that I always associated with Alice's visions. She was remembering those moments as I found myself so frequently doing.

"Those moments, small and seemingly insignificant as they might have been changed something in me. _You_ changed something in me. I don't know why or how it happened. I don't really understand any of this, to be completely honest. But Bella, Carlisle tried to convince me of love at first sight, that those moments had made me love you, however inadvertently it might have happened. 'A single moment of intrigue' he called it. You managed to capture something in me, something I did not even know I had, and have kept it. I know it's sudden and so fast and terribly inappropriate given our current situation, but you must understand that this has taken me over entirely. I have no control over these feelings, the sensations that pass through me at the very _sight_ of you. I have done so much to keep from hurting you that I was not paying attention as I…as I fell in love with you."

She remained so still and quiet after my words that I was afraid she was going to faint. Her heart was beating calmly; her breathing was deep and even. But she looked blank. Her face was barren of any emotion whatsoever.

"Bella," I murmured, my voice sounding so unsure of itself I was not certain it was my own. Her whole body seemed to come to life then. Her face flushed a brighter red than ever before. Her eyes blinked rapidly as though she was adjusting to the sunlight after being in the dark for hours. She licked her lips and opened her mouth several times, as though beginning to say something. Each time she closed her mouth again, cutting off her response. Just then a hissing sound interrupted her lack of words. The water from her pasta was boiling over and slipping on the stove.

"Crap," she muttered. She got up to fix the mess her dinner was making and ended up only turning off both the burners. She wiped up some of the water and then got a plate from the cabinet. She paused in front of the stove as she held it in her hands, as though she had forgotten what she was doing.

Each moment she was silent, each moment with her back to me, each moment she refused to answer me, make some sort of comment about my admission I felt like my body was being torn to pieces. Never had I experienced such pain. There was nothing so torturous as knowing you told someone you loved them and not getting any sort of response. My being a vampire she could handle, reading minds she could cope with, even my destructive years when I killed people seemed like no big deal to her. But love? She was literally speechless, unable to reply to me at all. Was the idea of my love so repugnant that she could not find a way to express how disgusted she was with the idea of a monster such as myself caring for her at all?

Suddenly she turned back to me.

"I don't understand," she said quietly. I was about to ask her what it was she did not understand when she continued.

"How could you love me? What sort of mental illness do you have? Obviously you cant be sane, because otherwise you would see how ridiculous of an idea that is," she said.

"I know. I don't deserve you in the least. I don't―"

"Whoa, wait. _You_ don't deserve _me_?"

I nodded. Obviously. The disparity between us could never be closed. I could never be as good as she was and I would not allow her to sink to where I was. She was meant for so much more than this cursed existence.

"What crazy backwards world do you live in? How could you think that?"

"Do you have the slightest idea how precious you are? How beautiful, strong, wonderful, awe inspiring? Every word you speak is glorious, every move, every sigh, every _breath_ is something sacred. You have no idea how astounded I am by your very presence. Just the chance to see you, to look into your eyes and see you looking back was so enticing to me that I risked both your life and my sanity for a single opportunity. You should run from me, make me leave you, but you don't. I am a monster, a murderer, a creature that admits that to wanting your blood more than anything else in the world, who tried to kill you once already and nearly killed you again. You…you are the epitome of beneficence. Nothing in this world compares to you. I could never be worthy of such radiance, no matter what I do for the rest of eternity. So yes, I believe that I am not worthy of you."

Her shock was complete. She looked totally incredulous.

"You could not be more wrong," she whispered. I wanted to ask what it was she thought I was wrong about. If she tried to argue any of my points on her magnificence I would have none of that.

"You are worthy of whoever you could possibly choose. I just don't understand what it is about me you find so fascinating. I'm just a girl, Edward, a human girl at that. You are so much more than me. Why would you want me?"

"Did you hear a single word I said?" I asked, not believing she had just asked me that question. Had I not just told her in great and slightly embarrassing detail what it was I found so glorious about her?

She nodded. Without another word I stood and crossed the room to her. I took her small hands in mine and held them gently.

"From the first moment I saw you, Bella, the very first."

She opened her mouth to speak. I drew a deep breath, measuring my control, trying to see how much I had in that moment. I had plenty, more than enough to do what I wanted to do now.

"I still don't―"

I cut off her words, touching my lips to her very softly. For a moment she froze, and then she responded, kissing me back with an intensity I was unprepared for. The feeling of her kiss was indescribable. Words could not accurately portray what went through me as her mouth moved with mine, kissing me, taking me further into this obsessive love that I had inside me. Nothing existed outside of her. She was so soft and warm. She tasted sweeter than I thought it was possible for anything to taste.

But soon I was overwhelmed. I could not breath because I was afraid of breathing her in and being so tempted to kill her I could not control myself. I gently pulled away and she was panting, her heart pounding in her chest. I let go of her hands and she swayed dangerously. Before she could fall, I wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into me, still breathing hard. Her cheek against my chest was warm, sending sparks of desire and comfort through me.

"I'm dizzy," she stated softly. I kissed the top of her head, marveling at how easy it was to be close to her in that moment, how easy and natural that kiss seemed.

"I won't let you fall," I replied. I felt her smile as I stood with her, holding her up, keeping her body from hitting the floor. When she had regained her balance she leaned away from me some and looked up into my face. She smiled then, a slightly embarrassed, very pleased smile. I could do nothing but grin in return.

But the memory of Alice's vision invaded my mind. To kill this woman would be sacrilege, a sin for which one could never be forgiven. God may have been merciful, but he could not excuse the murder of the most precious creature to ever walk the earth. I had killed her. By loving her, I had killed her.

For all my years of living, for the advantages I had over every human and even most vampires, for all the guidance I had ever received from my father, for all the visions and cryptic wisdom Alice had ever shared with me, I had no idea what to do now.

I could only hope loving her was enough.


	10. Please

Bella was crying again. In her sleep her body was trembling, her chest heaving. She sobbed quietly, tears spilling down her cheeks ferociously. It killed me. There was nothing I could do to help her. I could not change what she had done or take away her guilt. I could not take away her pain, as much as I wanted to. I would have gladly made every single ache disappear if I was able. But I could only watch as her sleep divulged her guilt and pain, as she cried, sounding almost hysterical.

I watched all night as she tears streamed down her face in streams, never ceasing. She kept calling out for someone to help her, begged not to be alone, and she apologized over and over, told the unknown girl she was sorry for leaving her behind. It had never been this bad. Even on the first night I had seen her she had not cried so hard.

Near daybreak I left. She didn't know that I had come in and watched her. I did not want her to know, at least not at this point. I had told her I loved her the day before. It had not escaped me that she had not returned my sentiments. I had kissed her yesterday as well, covered her perfect lips with mine, felt the heat of her skin, tasted her sweetness, reveled in the sensation of her body against mine. I was lost in her. But after that kiss, after the long moment that followed it, after she ate dinner, after we talked for a time, after I told her I should go, after I drove home and parked the car only to return to her house and watch her in her sleep I realized that there was something off about her now. She seemed so _sad_ suddenly, like there was something grievously wrong and I had missed it somehow.

Was it my admission? Was she saddened that I loved her, that I cared for her so deeply? Did she find that distressing? I had hoped she would reveal to me the nature of her sudden sadness in her dreams, but she only repeated what I was used to hearing, the reliving of the night she killed the rapist in the alley. But her tears were furious. They were never ending. She seemed to be pulling apart with every shaking, sleeping breath she took. It scared me. It didn't seem right—it didn't seem _fair_—that such an angel should be in such pain.

I pondered her sadness while I ran home. I thought it might be advisable to give Bella a day away from me to give all the things she had learned from my family and I some time to sink in. She had been told she was going to die, that we would try to protect her but we might not be able to, and that there was a monster hopelessly in love with her. That was quite a bit to adjust to all at once. She deserved time to think about what she wanted, whether or not she still wished for my company or not. If she told me to go I would leave her alone, but I would not leave until I was sure the Volturi were no threat to her. After that, it was undecided where I would go, but I had the means and the time to go wherever I wished.

When I got home I just wanted to be alone. But my family seemed to have another idea completely. They wanted to spend time with me, talk to me, ask me about Bella. Rose was the only exception to this, and even she was being uncharacteristically quiet. She would not voice her protests of the mention for a girl she was growing to despise more with every passing minute. Her dislike of Bella only intensified when Emmett mentioned her. He thought she was funny; he liked her. Rosalie found this rather distasteful.

Alice though was the most vocal with her inquiries about Bella, mostly through her thoughts, wondering about things she would not ask aloud. Such as if I had told her I loved her, and how the kiss went.

But I didn't want to talk about Bella, nor be barraged with thoughts about her. She was something I didn't feel comfortable discussing. She wasn't just a human, she wasn't a plaything or something we observed; she was the woman that I loved, the woman that had yet to tell me if she loved me back. I answered as equivocally as possible, avoided lying or really telling the truth about any of their queries and left them behind, ascending to my room.

Still though I could not be alone. My sullen mood had not escaped my family, and thanks to Jasper they now all knew I was feeling discouraged, confused, hurt, scared, guilty and lonely. He gave a name to each of the sensations inside me that I could not always identify. Some of them were familiar, guilt was nothing new, loneliness was something I had learned to cope with. But pain was a novel feeling. Confusion was an emotion I had not experienced in some time.

I had forgotten that one person could feel so much. It didn't seem like one body, even one as indestructible as mine, could hold so many emotions, all of them negative and conflicting. It seemed that any minute I would surely explode. The euphoria of love was gone, replaced with the sadness of sure rejection, the guilt of killing the object of my love, the ache in my chest that I felt when I thought of her crying in her bed all alone.

As I pondered what was happening to myself, the conversation turned from Bella or I to the threat of exposure. There were suggestions of leaving for a time to try and avoid the threat, but Alice assured that this was one thing that seemed to occur no matter where we went. She kept seeing the Volturi finding us no matter where we were because of something that happened. Although the event was still unclear to her. It maddened her that she could not see what was going to happen and tell us what it was so it could be prevented.

"We will just have to do as much damage control as we can," Carlisle said, attempting to assuage the fears of the family. I could hear him from where I was. It wasn't hard to hear anyone speaking in this house with my enhanced hearing.

"People are going to die," Alice said, so sure there was nothing we could do to stop that from happening.

"Perhaps we could convince whoever it is that exposes us to keep quiet about it. Then the Volturi won't ever hear about it and they won't come and take care of the situation," Emmett suggested. Alice sighed loudly.

There was more arguing about how to go about keeping the situation under control how to keep someone from going public, how to avoid being exposed in the first place. Because no one knew what was going to happen, we didn't know what we had to be careful about. Would the sun suddenly come out and reveal our glittering skin? Would one of us slip accidentally and move too fast or exert too much strength in the presence of humans?

This added more worry to the pile of negativity I was experiencing. What if _I_ was the one who exposed us? Then I would be responsible for the deaths of five innocent bystanders along with my precious Bella, for publicly exposing my family and calling the Volturi down on us. There would be no amount of time that could rid me of that guilt I would claim for such an action. I was always careful when I was in public. I made sure I didn't walk too fast or do something with unnatural speed or strength. We were all careful. It didn't seem realistic for one of us to do something accidentally to disclose our identities. Which only left doing something reckless on purpose.

None of us were that stupid. We wouldn't be remiss in public; we knew the price we all might pay and the punishment that might befall the humans who would witness us. We did not kill for sustenance; we would not cause the deaths of others for even less.

For a while I sat alone, thinking, listening, wondering what to do next, where to go from the place I was. There were so many direction things could go in now. The choices that needed to be made now would determine what path was laid out. The only problem was I was not the one in the position to make these choices. I had to wait for Bella to decide what she wanted from me, if my love was something she desired or if she would rather I leave her alone. She knew everything now—who and what I was, the dark things I had done, how I loved her—there was nothing left to say or do on my part. It was up to her now.

Aggravation was not an unfamiliar emotion to me, but the strength of it now did not make that any more of a comfort. I was on edge, waiting, wondering what she would decide, what she would want from me. Somehow that not knowing, that uncertainty of my future was more troubling than not knowing her thoughts. I understood now why Alice found it so unnerving to be unable to tell what the future held. When you were so frequently sure of how things were going to turn out, when your life brought so few surprises, when there was uncertainty it drove you mad. Bella frequently caused a feeling of madness in me, her scent, the feel of her skin against mine, her kiss, her laugh…all things that brought me to the brink of insanity with their sheer existence. She knew not the effect she had on me even after I tried to tell her what it felt like to be so affected by someone. It was impossible to elucidate. He swirling mass of emotions, the nervous, wonderful, awestruck feeling that erupted in me, the feeling of being so out of control when I knew I needed to be the most _in_ control drove me nearly out of my mind.

Love was like insanity, I had come to understand. The closest thing to being in love was being completely out of your mind. Nothing was rational. Nothing made sense. You did things for reasons that were completely illogical to all but you. You made choices that seemed completely idiotic, dangerous even, all for a tiny bit of satisfaction. You tried over and over again to make things work even if they were doomed to fail. You risked impossible odds, impossible circumstances all for the object of your love, going against the current, the status quo, what was right, what made sense, what was reasonable, logical or understandable, all for the person you cared for. You fixated on someone for what seemed like no reason to others, but to you seemed to be everything.

The world changed, warping before your eyes to encompass that person of your affections completely, devouring all else in your life to make room for them. All of this makes perfect sense to you, and yet someone on the outside can look at you and be utterly puzzled by you. Love closed gaps that seemed insurmountable. The disparity between a person and yourself, while not going completely unnoticed, seemed completely irrelevant while in love. Nothing mattered, not common sense, not reason, not reality.

Insanity was not love, but it was close.

Faced with my own stupidity, my own near insanity at my love for Bella I felt almost ashamed. She deserved more than this. She needed more than a monster that could only hurt her. She needed someone who could love her right, take care of her, make sure she was never hurt or wronged. I could try and give her these things, but I would be a danger to her. How could I make sure she was safe when I always wanted to hurt her myself?

I couldn't. That was the answer to that question. I could not keep her safe. Vampires and humans were not meant to mingle, neither were we meant to befriend each other. We were certainly not meant to fall in love with one another. It was dangerous. I was only ever putting Bella in danger. I was no good for her. She needed more than me, deserved so much more than the constant danger and exposure to the darkness of the world that I could give her. I wanted her to have a life without the constant threat of death over her head. She should not have ever been pulled into this world. I had dragged her down into it with me for my own selfish reasons. The only thing I could do now was leave her and make sure she was safe behind me.

There would be no real loss there. I was sure she did not return my love and thus she would not be disappointed to learn of my departure. I would tell her I was going. I wouldn't want to just leave and never tell her I was gone. But it would be a short goodbye, a terse exchange of words. She would not know why I was leaving, or where I was going, only that I was leaving the area. It was the only way to keep her safe. My family would stay behind. They would make sure she was not harmed if the Volturi arrived.

In the end the only one who would be losing anything was I. And even that would only be the loss of a woman I loved, not being able to see her again, touch her, kiss her, hear her musical voice. It was not the loss of love itself for she did not love me. It would only be the loss of something I cherished, like a keepsake I misplaced. Bella though was so much more than that. Leaving her behind would be like leaving a part of myself behind. There would always be something of me with her wherever she went, no matter how far she was from me. That was comforting and disconcerting at the same time. It made me feel like even when I was gone she would know that I still loved her and that she was never truly alone. But it also made me wary that perhaps because of that piece of me she was going to keep she would never be out of the shadow I had created on her life. She would be marked, branded almost, as a person who had seen too much of something they never should have seen to begin with.

It was all my fault.

I owed it to her to leave. It was my duty, my responsibility to make sure that she was not involved more than she already was. If I was around I would not be able to help myself and not pull her into my life. She was already too deep in this, it was only right that I remove her from the trouble I had placed her in.

I would do it tonight. The sooner the better. That gave me enough time to hunt and explain what I was doing to my family. As soon as I had taken care of those two things I could go talk with Bella and then I could leave. I didn't think I would be able to go say goodbye to Bella and then go see my family about my plans to leave. It would be too hard to see them after bidding farewell to the most marvelous creature ever to walk this earth.

I jumped from my window outside to hunt quickly. I didn't want my family stopping me. I didn't want them seeing me until I was ready to see them. I still had to figure out what I was going to tell them.

I hunted successfully, slaking the thirst for the moment and then walked home. I needed to think of what to tell them. I knew the news was not going to go over well, but things had to be done. I needed to keep her safe, give her a chance for a real life that was not poisoned with my presence.

As I approached home I realized this was going to be almost as difficult as parting with Bella. I took a deep breath to steel my resolve. It was still the right thing to do. It was the _only_ thing to do. Before I could even get inside I heard Alice shouting.

"Absolutely not, Edward!" she shrieked from inside. Of course she knew what was happening. She had seen my leaving as I made the decision to do so. She was aware of my choices as I was. I should have known this and prepared for the fight that was inevitable. I was going to have to fully explain myself now. I could not hide behind excuses or equivocations. I sighed and continued on inside.

"What are you thinking? How can you just _leave_?" Alice demanded.

"You don't understand, Alice. This isn't right, for either of us. I can't be what she needs, no matter what I want."

"Did you tell her?" she asked. I nodded and she looked even more puzzled. Then realization came over her face.

_She didn't say it back_. Her thought came as a statement, not as a question. My eyes locked to hers and she looked apologetic.

"I'm sorry. Please, Edward, don't give up yet. Just because she didn't say it doesn't mean she doesn't feel it," she said quietly. Aside from Carlisle, Alice was the only one who had any idea what was going on between Bella and I. Carlisle knew what she was saying from the beginning, knew what I felt before I did even and understood the confusing discussion between us. But after Alice uttered her last statement everyone else in the room came into sudden awareness. Jasper had suspected I loved her, but he seemed just as surprised to have his suspicions verified. Everyone else looked at me, their thoughts shocked, stunned, disbelieving.

"That is disgusting," Rosalie said finally. I shot a glare at her.

"Rosalie," Carlisle warned. She rolled her eyes and remained silent, but her thoughts were less than savory.

"How did this happen?" Esme asked. I was about to attempt to explain it, try and tell my family what had happened to me the very first time I set eyes on her, the first time I was able to look at her without trying to kill her and every moment after that.

"'Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?'" Carlisle quoted. His answer was simple and explained it better than I could have. I fell for her the first moment I saw her, and beyond that, it did not matter.

"But you're leaving?" Esme questioned. I sighed again.

"I can't stay. I can't pull her into a world that puts her in danger. I was selfish when I told her about us and now she might die because of it. Because I couldn't help myself, because I cared for her, I have brought her death. I can control the thirst around her now; it isn't as hard as it was before, though it can still be difficult. I should never have involved her, and now that I have…she deserves more than I can give her. It wouldn't be right for me to stay," I explained.

"But, Edward―"

"Please, Alice, please. I have to fix this. I created this mess and now it is my responsibility to clean it up. I'm going to Alaska for a while to stay with Tanya. If you need me, that is where I will be. If I leave there for any reason I will send word before I do. I can't stay here. Please, let me go and do what I need to do now before it is too late," I begged.

Six pairs of eyes stared back at me. There was something solemn about them, resigned and sad at the loss of a family member. They knew there was nothing they could do to keep me here. My mind was made up.

"Promise me only that you will keep her safe," I asked. No one spoke for a long time.

"Of course," Carlisle said. I nodded to my father and then to my mother. I smiled at Alice, whose face was set into something determined not to show how upset she was. Jasper could not help but feel the sadness, the loss, of his mate and was doing a worse job keeping his facial expressions in check. Emmett said nothing and his face was blank, but his mind was racing. His memories were streaming by so quickly I could hardly make sense of them. They were all of me, or us. He was trying to make me stay. Rose for her part was just as blank in appearance as Emmett, but her mind was equally vacant. I sighed and sent a small smile her way.

And then I left my family.

I ran to Bella's house. When I got there less than a minute after leaving my house the sun was just about to set. I knocked gently on her door, wishing I could know what I could say to make this easy. I had the distinct feeling that easy would play no part in this interaction.

When she answered the door the smile that lit her face was so radiant, so breathtakingly beautiful that for a moment I wondered what I was doing. How could I leave her behind? What kind of insanity had taken me to make me want to be without her?

But that same smile reminded me what I was doing here. She should smile every day for the rest of her life. She should never need to frown, or crease her brow in worry or fear. If I stayed, if I remained with her, there would never be a day _without_ danger or fear. I owed it to her to give her a chance for something more.

"Hi, Edward. Come in," she said, her voice a warm invitation. I shook my head. _Breathe in, breathe out. Inhale that scent while you still have the chance, lock it away in your memory._

"It would be better if I didn't," I replied. Her face flickered and then returned to the pleasant expression.

"Okay."

She stepped out her door and joined me on the step.

"Bella, I'm leaving." The words came out before I thought of them. My mind did not process them; it only forced speech out of my mouth. For a moment she looked like she didn't see the problem, like she didn't understand why this was such a solemn occasion. She was waiting for me to tell her when I was coming back, when I would see her again. Realization dawned slowly on her face, taking time as it passed across her expression. It took hold of her eyes last, dampening them into something almost lifeless. They had looked that way when she told me she killed someone.

"You're not coming back," she stated, as though she needed to say it, to hear it out loud to believe it.

"No, I'm not. This isn't healthy, Bella, for either of us. It isn't _safe_. I can't stay here. I promise, my family will make sure no harm comes to you. Goodbye, Bella."

I looked at her for a long time and she looked right back. She said nothing. Her face was carefully empty. Her mind had always been blank to me, and so I knew I would find nothing there. I could not help but wonder what she was thinking, though, what she was feeling. How would she take my departure?

Finally I turned and walked off her steps. I was halfway down the path to the road when she called to me.

"Please," she said quietly, though obviously loud enough for me to hear. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I could not hear the tears in her voice.

"Please what?" I asked, without opening my eyes or turning around.

"Please don't leave me alone."

In all the nights I had stayed by her bed I had heard her say those exact words countless times. I had thought about what it would feel like if she asked me to stay with her when she was awake, if she were to beg for that same thing while conscious.

No matter how much I imagined, nothing could have prepared me for what I felt. A sudden tearing in my body as I almost literally split in half. One half of me was rooted to the spot, determined to finish what it had started and do what it had set out to. The other was already with her, promising she would never be alone again.

I turned around and beheld my lovely Bella standing on her steps, biting her lip to keep it from quivering.

"You aren't alone, Bella. My family will be here, you have your friends, school is starting soon. There are plenty of people here for you," I said.

"You said you loved me," she reminded me. I sighed. I had told her I loved her. And I had meant each and every word. I could not lie about it now. I wanted to. It would have been easier if she didn't know, or if I could tell her that I didn't love her anymore, but I couldn't make myself do it.

"I did," I responded. It was noncommittal. It made no comment either way, whether I loved her still or I had been lying to begin with.

"Then stay."

"I can't."

She stood there for a long moment without speaking or moving. Then she drew a deep breath and turned and walked back into her house without another word. She closed the door behind her without looking at me. I heard her hit the ground on the other side of the door. I wanted to go to her, comfort her, stroke her hair, hold her and love her. But the damage had been done. I had done what I set out to do. She would not want me.

I walked for a while in town without really seeing where I was going. I ended up back on the main street. There not far from me was the florist. Her sign still read open.

I went in and bought a dozen black roses, a dozen red roses, and gloxinia, a flower that denoted love at first sight. I wanted her to know that I loved her, that I would always love her, even if I were gone. Maybe she would take these as an apology, and I was all right with that.

I was walking back to her house when I heard a scream.

Bella.

I dropped the flowers and ran—at a human pace—toward her shriek. I rounded a corner and saw her. There was a man holding her at gunpoint, demanding her money and her jewelry. Hadn't I told her not to walk around by herself at night? Hadn't I warned her to be more careful with her safety?

She was shaking, barely understanding what was going on. She reached in her pocket and fumbled. She didn't have any money. She pulled off her class ring from high school and handed it over. I could hear other people's minds, thinking about Bella and the mugger as they watched her without attempting to help. I ignored these voices in my head as I went to protect her.

I walked, calmly but quickly in her direction.

_Calm, calm, calm._

I tried to keep myself from launching at the man in front of Bella and tearing him apart.

"The necklace too," he said. She looked down at herself and still shaking began to unclasp it.

"Hey!" I shouted. The mugger looked over his shoulder at me and Bella caught my eye as well. Her fear was so apparent, so fresh that it only made me angrier.

"Get out of here, kid," the mugger called back. I shook my head.

"Leave her alone. Hand her back her things and leave now."

The man laughed, all the while thinking how crazy I must have been to come up on him while he was bigger and had a gun in his hand. He had no idea what he was up against; it was natural for him to feel as though he was the one with the power in the situation. Humans and their weapons. When I kept walking forward he got nervous. He pointed the gun at me, keeping an eye on Bella at the same time.

"I said get out of here," he reminded me. I shrugged. I continued to walk. I was less than ten feet form him now, fast closing in. He understood now that I meant to finish this and if he didn't act quickly he was going to die.

He fired the gun.

When the bullet ricocheted off my chest it felt like being poked. The bullet lodged itself in the sidewalk and then the mugger quickly shot off another two rounds. I ignored the rules and moved out of the way, getting to him before his finger had even squeezed the trigger for the second time. I took the gun from his hand and threw it as hard as I could into the woods to my left. It was likely miles away by the time it hit the ground.

I was about to deal with the man who had just tried to rob Bella and then kill me when I heard a small voice.

"Oh my God! That bullet just bounced right off of you!"

Oh no.

* * *

AN:

The quote Carlisle uses when exlaining things to Esme belongs to Christopher Marlowe.


	11. Apology

The woman who had spoken was standing behind me and to the left. I turned just briefly to see her and three others watching from the shadows. The cowards allowed an innocent woman to be robbed before their eyes, but they emerge to look at the monster in their midst. This was a catastrophe. All I had been trying to do was help Bella and I had ended up exposing myself, my kind, my family. What had I done?

But I could not marvel in my stupidity at the moment. I had to take action, sort out this situation as soon as possible. I turned to Bella, ignoring the rest of the world for a long moment.

"Go home, Bella."

"But―"

"Please, go home, I will meet you there when I am done here," I told her. At first she looked reluctant, but then she sighed and nodded, turning on her heel and marching in the direction of her house. I watched as she went, no one else moving but her. That seemed to describe our relationship fairly accurately; nothing moved but her, nothing seemed real but her.

And then I realized I was digressing again. Our relationship for the moment was the second thing on my mind. The first was how to fix the mess I had made.

There were three others—the woman who had spoken and two men—and the mugger that I had saved Bella from. The first to dispatch was the man who had attacked my Bella, the woman that I loved above all others. He threatened her safety, her life. I knew my very presence did the same, and yet the deliberate manner in which he threatened her, the way he so carelessly endangered her infuriated me.

"Give me her things," I told him. He looked at me suddenly as though he had forgotten I could speak. He was staring openly, his thoughts a swirled mass of confusion and fear. He thought I would kill him. While I was tempted, I would not end his pitiful life. This filth was not worth the burden on my conscience nor the further exposure of my identity.

Shaking, he reached into his pocket and produced what he had taken from Bella, placing them lightly in my hands. Her class ring and a necklace I had never seen her wear before dropped into my palm. I pocketed these things before turning back to the mugger. His name was Alex, which I knew because his life was flashing before his eyes. His mother was speaking to him, calling his name gently when he was a child. But he was no child now. I growled and he cringed, anticipating an attack.

"Go now. If I ever see you again I will not be so merciful," I managed to say, through gritted teeth. He turned on his heel and ran, sprinting away from me as fast as his human body would allow. If I had run after him, even slowly, I would have caught him in no time and taken him down. I desperately wanted to, just for scaring Bella. However I managed to restrain myself as he fled the scene.

I took a deep breath and turned to the rest of the spectators.

"Please, go home and forget you ever saw this," I said softly, knowing it was loud enough for them to hear even still.

My request seemed to go right over their heads. In their minds they were replaying the last few minutes, watching the bullet ricochet again and again. The word 'superman' flitted through one of their minds quickly and I almost laughed. I was the furthest thing from a super hero. It was clear that even though I was attempting to clear their minds of anything but my request I was not going to be successful.

"What are you?" the woman asked. She was short and mousy looking, her brown hair hanging around her face flatly, curious beady eyes peeking out from behind thick glasses. Her mind was calculating already, wondering, asking questions I had no intention of answering.

"That is none of your business," I answered curtly. The harshness of my tone must have frightened her—all of them, really—because they all three took a step back at the same time. Fear. I could work with fear.

"I will tell you once more, go now and forget this night occurred. Speak of this to no one. This was nothing more than a dream, a hallucination your mind created after watching a girl getting mugged. It wasn't real. Now go, and remember nothing," I commanded. In their minds my words seemed reasonable. Posttraumatic stress disorder popped into the woman's mind as she wondered if she was going crazy, imagining incredibly beautiful men that bullets bounced off of and moved faster than she could see. The others were somewhat similar, both men shaking their heads in a sort of dazed confusion, already trying to block this out of their minds as they turned and walked slowly away.

The woman lingered a moment longer than I would have liked. But eventually she sighed and turned as well, thinking again that she should have her head examined by a shrink. She thought she was crazy, which was just fine. Better crazy than ready to expose me.

When they were far enough away that I could not hear their thoughts I immediately proceeded to Bella's house. I didn't knock, I didn't wait at her door, I simply let myself in. The time for formality was over. She was sitting in her living room, curled into a ball on her couch, staring blankly at the wall across from her.

"Bella," I said softly. She turned and looked at me, her eyes suddenly filling with emotion. Relief. Sadness. Anger. I flinched when I saw the last, and yet I knew I deserved it. I deserved whatever she might say to me now.

She said nothing however. She simply stood and walked over to me, meeting my eyes as she took each step. When she reached me she took a deep breath.

And then she slapped me across the face.

She winced in pain and withdrew her hand, pulling it to her body and inspecting it gingerly. I stared back at her in shock.

"I know that wasn't the brightest idea seeing as I tend to injure myself when I hit you, but you―"

For the second time I cut off her words with a kiss. Beautiful, brazen, unpredictable Bella. Nothing about her followed the way I expected, nothing about her seemed to fit. She surprised me constantly, something that I was not used to. I half expected her to pull away from my kiss, to push me away because I had hurt her, left her behind only to reappear after uttering hateful words. But she responded in kind, wrapping herself around me, breathing in deeply as if to capture my scent the way I was trying to capture hers, clutching my desperately. Could it be she was just as addicted to me as I was to her?

When I finally disengaged myself from her I was panting heavily, beating back the monster that craved her blood, and the man that wanted to never stop kissing her, as I had been a moment before. She stared at me long and hard then finally sighed.

"What is going on, Edward?" she asked slowly. Such questions were asked so simply, so innocently that it seemed like they themselves could be simple, and yet I had no answer. What was going on? I couldn't answer that. I loved her desperately, with more fervor than before, realizing how close she had come to being injured or dead this night because some thug wanted to make some quick money. But I knew I was bad for her. I knew her life would never be what it could, what it _should_ if I was there to forever cast her into shadow. I wanted her, needed her urgently, craved her like a drug. But that should not matter in comparison to what she deserved.

Besides, it had not escaped my notice that she had not returned my love for her, at least not in any way I was able to recognize. She had not said it in return, nor had she made any gestures that would suggest such feelings. That made it easier to leave her, though only marginally.

"I wish I had an answer to that," I replied softly. She sighed heavily and turned away from me. For a long moment she stood there silently, her back to me, and then she sighed again.

"You can go now," she whispered. I felt my expression change from one of gentle confusion to sudden bewilderment.

"Bella I―"

"No, its okay, I understand," she said. She turned back around and her face was blank, completely empty, so much so I knew it was forced. "You saved my life, and for that I am really grateful. But you don't have to hang around. You were leaving, so you can go. Don't stay here just because you think you have to protect the damsel in distress."

I should have been prepared for the effect her words would have on me. But for some reason when she said them, so convinced she didn't mean anything to me, that she was worth nothing, it stung. There was a sort of biting feeling that struck me forcefully knowing it was my fault she thought those things about my feelings for her. I basically told her that she wasn't enough to make me stay. That I loved her, but that wasn't enough to keep me here. The look in her eyes, the dead shell reflection in her glazed expression made me want to fall to my knees and apologize. I was so afraid it was too late to rectify my mistake. But I knew I couldn't leave again. It was hard enough walking away from an angel once; doing it a second time would be near impossible. I couldn't, especially after seeing the look on her face.

"Bella, I'm not here because I feel like I need to protect you. I will protect you regardless, but Bella, I'm here because I _love_ you. I know that I said I was leaving and that I wasn't coming back but that was just a moment of strength. I don't think I will be strong enough to do it again."

This time it was her face that contorted in confusion.

"But…I…I don't understand. You said you were leaving, but you say you love me…I just don't get how that all fits together."

"I know, and that is completely my fault. I know the things I have said seem completely contradictory. But, I do love you, more than anything else in the world. That was why I was leaving. I know it sounds backwards, but I was convinced—in fact I still am—that your life would be simpler, better, if I were not involved. You don't need a monster complicating your life. But I am weak when it comes to you. I can throw trees, I can stop cars with my bare hands, but I am so powerless around you. Seeing your face so distraught and openly upset nearly killed me. When you asked me not to go…you don't know how close I came to changing my mind. I don't know how I managed to leave."

"Then why did you?" she inquired softly. I took a deep breath and then took a few steps, closing the short distance between us. I placed my hands on either side of her perfect face and held it there for a few minutes.

"I want you to have the life you deserve, and unfortunately for me, that doesn't involve my presence. Your safety, your happiness, is never guaranteed with me. You seemed ready to accept that before, and I hope that has not changed because of my foolishness. I promise, I will never leave you again unless you ask me to."

I felt her face curl into a smile under my hands as I watched her expression change. It was lovely, as always. She turned her face smoothly and pressed her lips to my left palm before taking both my hands in hers and sighing.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered to her. She nodded and her smile faded just the smallest bit.

"Apology accepted," she murmured in response. There was a moment where neither of us moved or spoke. A silence, somewhere between comfortable and uncomfortable filled the room, seeming to thicken the air.

"Say it again," she whispered.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. She shook her head.

"I love you." Again I was met with her shaking her head.

"I will never leave you again," I said resolutely, no ounce of doubt in my voice, nothing there but surety of how much I needed her. She squeezed my hands tightly showing me that was what she needed to hear and sighed. She mouthed 'thank you' and closed her eyes as I drew her to me, holding her against my chest without speaking. Holding her there I was able to forget about the coming dangers, the position I had just put myself, my family and Bella into. Nothing mattered but her sweet, steady heartbeat, the scent of her skin and the thrilling warmth she exuded. I was again intoxicated by her very presence. I longed never to leave that very spot.

It was the voices of my family, soft at first but growing ever stronger that roused me from the fantasy I was having where I never left Bella's side again for the rest of eternity. I sighed when I recognized to whom the voices belonged. I stepped away from her slowly, only separating our bodies by a few inches, just enough to speak to her and be able to look into her eyes.

"Bella, my family is coming. We should go outside and meet them," I said softly. She nodded absently, her eyes illustrating how very far away from he current situation her mind was. I led her by the hand out the door and to her back yard, where from the trees my family was slowly appearing. We approached each other in silence, Bella watching them as they watched her, with distinct interest and a bit of curiosity.

"Hello, Bella," Alice said cheerily. Bella smiled in return and responded to the greeting softly. She then turned and greeted everyone else kindly, calling each one by name; even Rosalie who she knew had a dislike for her.

"Would you all, um, like to come inside?" she asked politely. If I could have read her mid I was sure it would have portrayed the confusion I had heard in her voice. Was it a proper custom to invite a group of vampires into your home?

"Gladly, Bella, thank you for the invitation," Esme responded, with a measure of social grace that never ceased to amaze me. Again in silence, we went into her home and seated ourselves in her living room.

"Is it certain then?" I asked slowly. Alice nodded, as though afraid to speak. Words were not really all that necessary. Everyone knew what I was talking about. The Volturi would come. The only choice now was to protect Bella as best as I could. While the lives of the others were by no means unimportant, the one that really mattered to me was Bella. I didn't love the others. They were just humans. They should not be killed, but there was little I could do for them now. It would be far easier to protect a single girl than a number of strangers.

"It will be easiest if we take her with us," Emmett suggested. I was inclined to agree. I would be a nervous wreck if I had to be away from her and I was unsure where she was or if she was safe. If she stayed at my house it would be easier to keep track of her, and make sure she was never left uncared for. If the Volturi were going to find out about her it only made sense to keep her as close to me as I could.

"You must be joking," Rosalie responded. I almost growled at her, but refrained for fear of frightening Bella.

"If the Volturi are going to discover Bella no matter what we do it would make the most sense to keep her close so we can best protect her," Carlisle replied slowly, his words echoing my thoughts perfectly. Of course his interest was less focused on the emotional turmoil it would cause if she were to die than the safety of everyone involved. I pushed that thought from my mind. Her death was unthinkable. I would not allow myself to wallow in that possibility.

"But―"

"Please, Rose, please try to appreciate things beyond yourself for one moment. I understand the danger I am putting myself in, I understand what I am doing to the family; I _understand_ this is neither the safest nor the wisest path to have gone down. But it is too late to turn back now. I love her, Rose, _I love her_. I know you don't believe me, but think of how much you care about Emmett, think about the depth of your love for him and then imagine someone was telling you not to protect him, not to watch out for him. I have never felt so tied to a person in my life. I have never wanted someone the way I want her. It can't be anything other than love. If that means I have to fight the whole of the Volturi to keep her safe I will do so. I am only hoping to do it with my family behind me."

The tangible tension that sparked between us for a long moment after my words felt heavy, as though someone had laid a large weight upon me.

"If a chance comes for me to say I told you so, I am taking advantage of that," Rose informed me. I smiled at her and nodded. If that were all it would take to convince her not to fight me every step of the way on this, I would gladly cede to her wishes to inform me she told me so at some later date.

Conversation began again as my family thought out the next step, where Bella would stay, what we would do when the Volturi arrived. I was half paying attention, half staring at Bella, watching her face as she listened to the words flowing around us.

"Edward," she said quietly during one of the few moments I was turned away from her. I turned my face back to her and smiled at the soft expression on her face.

"I love you."


	12. Tomorrow

No one in the room beside Bella and I knew the significance of that utterance. To anyone else it would seem a commonplace statement. But to me it was like being blessed, being told that I was not damned, told I could ascend to heaven some day with the angel sitting beside me. Redemption through love.

I caught her face between my hands and stared for a long moment at the perfect lips that had uttered that celebrated statement before capturing them in a kiss. Three words had suddenly changed so much about me. I was _loved_ and not by my father or mother, not by my brother or sister, by a girl who knew what I was, a human who saw me, who looked at me and was not fooled by the lies we created to mask our existence. When she gazed at me she created this tingling warmth inside me that I thought was purely impossible. There was nothing on earth that compared to the moment after she spoke.

That revelation hit me forcefully, more so even than when I realized that I loved her. That was a personal realization, one I had to come to terms with. My own feelings were mine, and even though I had denied them, I had them inside me the entire time and only had to finally acknowledge them. They had existed for a time, simply unrecognized. But this was so much more than I could ever have asked for. Did I pray for it with my very existence, beg whatever god there might be to bless me with such splendor? I surely did. Only then I realized that I had been asking God for the wrong thing entirely. There was no way I could ever have anticipated the joy that inundated me completely, took me over in a tidal wave of emotion. I could not have prayed for that if I tried. It was like being able to fly. I felt like anything at all was possible.

It was the sudden silence—both of their minds and voices—that startled me into remembering we were not alone. I looked over to my family scattered about the room and they were watching me, completely shocked. At first it was just the ferocity of my reaction to her words that bemused them, but then it was a marvel at my control. I had just kissed her and managed not only to keep in control, but not break her. I could touch her without injuring her, hold her close, bring my lips to her skin and not bite into it. I could feel the steady beat of her heart, feel the pulse of her sweet blood under my lips when I pressed them to her skin, and yet I controlled myself. My desire for contact, for closeness, for kisses, outweighed my desire for her ambrosial blood.

It was Jasper's expression that caught me the most, a look of completely unguarded joy. It was only a reflection of my own happiness, but seeing it in him, watching the way he mirrored that feeling was almost as wonderful as feeling it. Was that how I looked at the moment? So happy it was almost impossible to look at without smiling back? I glanced around and noticed that even Rose had a slight smile on. Even she, who disliked Bella, who disagreed with every decision I had made about her thus far, who was only doing this because she knew she really had no other option, was smiling just the smallest bit watching me be so happy. In her mind even her bitter thoughts had ended, simply wondering how long it had been since I had looked so happy. Not a single disgruntled thought passed through her mind or her lips, only smiling that I was so jovial.

Being happy was not an infrequent occurrence. My family made me happy. I enjoyed their company. I laughed often at Emmett or with Alice, I found myself enjoying the easy banter or comfortable silence with any and all of them often. And yet this moment blew every single second of comparable happiness out of the water. They meant so little then. I would not go so far as to say they meant nothing because no moment of happiness is ever meaningless, and yet in this single instant, those moments seemed to pale in my perfect memory, growing less shining in my mind in comparison to the flawlessness of this single minute.

I looked back to Bella, my beloved one who made this moment the best that ever was or ever could be and she smiled gently back at me, her eyes so full of affection I almost _needed_ to kiss her again. I took one of her hands and brushed my lips across the back of it. Her heart jumped and stuttered. I smiled at her and sighed and she grinned and blushed, biting her lip gently. It seemed impossible that such a beautiful creature could ever love me, that such a seraph could look upon me without flinching; and yet she seemed entranced as she gazed into my eyes.

"Sweet Bella, you know not what you say," I whispered softly. She looked down at our entwined hands and brought them to her face, pressing the back of my hand to her lips as I had with hers.

"Do you love me?" she asked quietly. It did not escape me that my family was listening intently to this exchange, and yet along with my happiness I seemed to have lost all my propriety. I didn't care what they heard.

"Never has a man loved a woman more than I love you," I answered without the slightest hesitation. She smiled again.

"Would you have me say I don't love you? Would you have me tell you I don't return those affections? If you say yes, then you must know you would have me lie. I can do nothing _but_ love you, Edward. You saved me in so many ways I cant accurately list them without taking eternity, which I know you have, but I don't. Please, don't ignore or belittle my love because you think I can't love you the way you love me, or because you think it isn't good for me to love you. That changes nothing. Your opinions of my love do not change facts, no matter what you might wish."

I sighed heavily and squeezed lightly at her hands encased in mine.

"You misunderstand me. I would not have you lie, neither would I prefer it if you did not love me. Would it make things exponentially simpler for us both? Certainly. But I would have nothing but your love for the rest of my life. It that alone could sustain me I would never drink a single drop of blood again. I would have no need. I would have no _desire_.

"And I could certainly never belittle you love; such a precious gift is not to be scoffed at or go unappreciated. I am simply trying to make you understand that those words you spoke, three small words that sound like so little have done something unimaginable. If ever I thought anything was possible it was never more than these moments. You give me hope, Bella; you give me faith that things will all work out in the end, if only because they _must_ if I am to have you. And I _will_ have you, of that I am completely certain. I could not live without you now. My life without you would be a world without sun or air, without water or earth. It would be a land of nothing and I would be reduced, slowly but surely, to nonentity as well. Nothing would matter without you or your love. Understand only that when I say you know not what you say it is only because you cannot imagine what it feels like to know that you love me."

"No, I think I can. I am sure it feels akin to the moment you told me you loved me," she replied softly. Without thinking I kissed her again with reckless, dangerous abandon. In those moments I knew my control would not even be close to tested. There was nothing that I wanted more than to love her then. Her blood, while crying for me, begging to be taken seemed to be silenced then; her steady pounding heart momentarily was still and quiet, ceasing its temptation for the duration of the kiss.

When I disentangled myself from her grasping hands and desperate need with which I was clinging to her we were both breathing hard, panting heavily, craving nothing more than to never be apart and yet knowing there were other things that needed to be tended to. Our love, proclamations and explanations, could be saved until later when there was not so much danger hanging over our heads.

"Enough already," Emmett exclaimed, but the expression on his face would have given him away even if I were unable to read his thoughts. He was happy for me. Seeing me with Bella, watching the way we interacted was one of the most wonderful things he had ever witnessed. He marveled at the strength I must have been exerting being so near to a woman who called to me so fiercely and yet along with that marvel was a sort or knowing. He loved Rose ferociously with everything he had in him. I had never known what that felt like. I had never experienced that sort of all consuming affection for a single being. Now I had, I knew that overwhelming love for another, the type of love that made you sacrifice everything you had if only to see them smile, had you bend over backwards if only to make them happy and give them what they desired. He was happy to see his 'big brother' finally understood that. They all felt bad that I missed out on love, and now as his thoughts of satisfaction passed through his mind so did they through the minds of the rest of my family. He might have been pretending to find our affectionate displays annoying or disgusting, but truly he was only happy for me.

Bella however did not know this and blushed furiously, her face turning a delightful shade of red. If only she knew how I loved to see her turn that color. She looked more than lovely; more than charming with her cheeks flushed so. I brushed my fingers across her cheek to cool the heat in her face and again felt awe at the heat of her skin, let alone that she let me touch her.

"It seems that for the moment our only option is to wait for the Volturi and protect Bella as best we can," Carlisle asserted. I looked to Alice who nodded. She had not seen anything that could aid us in knowing when the Volturi would be here, neither if there was something we could do to keep Bella safe. I would fight for her. There was nothing anyone could do to stop me from protecting her. She was mine and I would be damned a thousand times over if anyone thought they could take her from me by way of death or any other means. I would die a hundred million painful deaths before I would let that happen. I would experience the change every day for the rest of eternity if only to feel her smooth skin beside mine and hear that melodic voice echo in my mind.

Volturi or no Volturi I would be keeping my Bella, because she was mine to keep. My mate, my love, mine in every sense of the word. I was possessive I knew. It had begun even before those moments, before we had exchanged love or even affection. I had begun thinking of her as mine before it was healthy or appropriate, but the length of time with which I had internally possessed her only made my aversion to her current danger that much stronger. How dare someone threaten this woman? Regardless of her exposure to our world, regardless of what she knew or didn't know, there was not a single being on earth that had the right to end her life, no matter their intent or purpose.

However, no matter how I felt about the current situation it did not change the fact that as far as we could tell her life was in danger, more so than it had been lately due to my presence. There were vampires coming here to take care of a problem, only to find her and think her part of the situation that needed remedying. She was no such thing. She did not need to be 'taken care of' in any way other than the ways I would take care of her. She would be loved until the end of her days, cherished and adored until her death, at which point I would follow her. I could not exist in a world without her. I had not been exaggerating when I had told her of the depth of my commitment to her. This world would hold no meaning, no joy. There would be nothing left for me here. I would want nothing. If I could not kill myself outright I would starve, let myself waste away as my desire for blood waned as my mourning for Bella filled me. She was all I needed forever. Blood was now second to my desire for Bella. She sustained me now. It was not a matter of 'if' any longer, a fact I had known even as I spoke words that contradicted that to Bella minutes before. Her admission of love had only cemented my need for her, the unavoidable obsession, addiction I had to her.

"Bella, I know it is much to ask of you to gather your things and leave here to stay with us. I know we are asking you to give up your life for the time being, to ignore the human world for the sake of safety. But you must understand that unless you do these things, we cannot guarantee your security. In fact, in all honesty, even if you do all these things I cannot say with absolute certainty no harm will come to you. But I know my son and I know he will do everything in his power—which if you have yet to notice is quite a bit—to make sure that nothing happens to you."

It was Carlisle who spoke again. His words seemed so calm and sure, so soft and easy as they flowed through the air, into my mind. In his thoughts he was only reaffirming what he was telling Bella. Along with all the power I possessed he would use whatever influence and leverage he had with the Volturi, all his strength and courage, intelligence and guile to keep her safe, keep us alive, and keep his family together. He wanted nothing more than a safe, happy family. If that meant risking his life to keep us together and out of danger he would do it time and again. He was truly the epitome of a father; regardless of the fact there was no biological tie between he and I. Biology did not determine his devotion to his family, and even to Bella, who was so new to our situation but already mattered to him. She was already precious, if only because she made me happy. He knew that I would never love another woman the way I loved her now. He was already coming to think of her as a daughter.

"I understand. This is the only way. I can always come back to this life later if I want to. For now, though, the only safe choice is to do whatever you ask of me. If that means coming to stay with you until this danger has passed I will. I have no doubt you will take care of me," Bella answered. Her voice did not tremble. Such bravery in this tiny little girl, whose fate was uncertain, the only certainly she knew was that she was greatly at risk. My admiration for her swelled.

Before anyone else could speak Alice jumped to her feet and snatched Bella away from me, pulling her along so she could help her gather some clothing to bring with her. I rolled my eyes as she babbled excitedly about having her at the house as she and Bella ascended the staircase. Jasper watched them go, looking after Alice with a sort of longing. I was sure I was part of that, influencing his current mood with all my love and adoration for Bella, fueling his love and need for Alice. I had gone through such a surge of powerful emotions that he was sure to have suffered some of the side effects. At the current moment all I felt was uneasiness that Bella was out of my arms and out of arm's reach. Surely I could get to her in less than a minute and yet I still felt strange about it. I wanted her here now, in my arms and safe with me where I could see and touch her, where I could know that no one was hurting her.

"Extraordinary creature, really. Of course I should have known that nothing but such a wonderful woman could capture the heart of my most particular son," Esme said gently, giving me a smile. It was nice to hear her voice her approval of Bella. Of course I knew she liked her for a while now, but still I liked hearing it because that meant she had stopped considering it and decided she liked her.

"She has stolen me," I confessed quietly. There was no shame in that admittance.

"Rightly so, Edward. Being in love is nothing if not understanding that you no longer belong to yourself but to another who has given themselves over to you in an equal way. You will never feel empty when you are with her because though you feel as though there is nothing left of you that she does not posses, the same can be said of her. She replaced all that you have given to her with equal parts of herself. You are whole with pieces of her. That is love. Being so much a part of someone you cannot tell where you end and they begin," she answered with a wider smile. I could do nothing but smile in return. I wanted to love Bella for the rest of eternity. I wanted to take everything inside of me and regardless of anything she might return give it to her without question. I belonged to her. As possessive as I might have been of her I was as much hers as she was mine. There was no question about that.

Scarcely had Esme finished talking when Alice and Bella descended the stairs and found their ways back to their respective partners. Bella took her place next to me and Alice next to Jasper. While Jasper seemed to be content having Alice near him and seemed not to need the certainty of contact I was not so in control of my needs. I _had_ to touch her, make sure she was still real and not some elaborate fantasy I had concocted. When my fingers met her skin and collided with the silken warmth of her hand I was once again reminded this angel was for me. I sighed and brushed some hair from her eyes before leaning forward just the slightest bit and touching my lips to hers for a brief moment. The brevity of the kiss did not mean her body did not react. The mere second my lips touched her caused her heat to jump in her chest. I smiled at her involuntary reaction and then sighed.

A large suitcase was sitting at the entrance to the living room, all packed up and nearly bursting with Bella's clothing. Alice had gone through every article of clothing she owned and packed only what she approved of. I felt a little sad for her that she already had to cope with Alice's fashion obsession that spilled over to the other members of the family.

There was a short pause then as we all took a moment to figure out the next step in our plan. It seemed the only logical thing was to bring Bella home. I looked over to her and she seemed to understand without needing to be told what was about to happen. We all stood almost simultaneously. Emmett took Bella's things without being asked as we walked out the door. When we reached the woods I pulled Bella up onto my back and ran with her, feeling her body tense as we went along. She was still frightened of running. If only that was all she had to be frightened of; I wished with all I had in me that it were.

When we reached home, less than a minute after we had begun running, I set Bella on her feet. She swayed only for a moment before finding steadiness. She still held on to me but I knew it was not for balance so much as comfort. My touch soothed her; she enjoyed having contact with me as I enjoyed being in contact with her. That pleased me more than I though possible.

We entered our house and Emmett passed Bella's things to me as our family broke apart and went in separate directions. I did not listen to see where they were going or what they were all doing. I honestly could not have cared less. Their business was their own and I had nothing to do with it. Bella, however, was very much my business. We ascended the stairs still silent and as though already in agreement made our way to my bedroom. There was no bed in there, but I could get one soon enough. She glanced around at the space, the couch, the large open hearth, the windows displaying the night landscape, the skylights revealing the stars, the thick, plush carpeting that covered the floor. She sighed and then looked at me.

"If you would rather say in one of the guest rooms you are most welcome to," I offered tentatively. Truly I wished for nothing more than to keep her near me always. But if it would make her more comfortable to sleep in a bed in a room all her own I would not argue. But she shook her head and shrugged.

"Here is fine," she murmured. I put down her things and then looked back at her. She broke from my hold and meandered about the room slowly, inspecting it closely. After her inspection she confessed fatigue. I went and gathered blankets for her so she could sleep on the couch while she changed into sleepwear. When I returned she was sitting on the couch, stretching tiredly in gray sweatpants and a large t-shirt. She looked adorable.

"Here you are, love," I said, laying the blankets and pillows down on the couch beside her. She frowned slightly and bit her lip anxiously.

"What is the problem?" I asked softly.

"We wont both fit on this couch, Edward."

I looked at her for a long moment before laughing. She was frustrated because I could not sleep there with her, even though I couldn't sleep at all.

"I shall compromise with you. I will go collect more blankets and when I return we can create a sleeping space on the floor. Is that agreeable?" I asked with a grin. She instantly perked up. I went and did as I said and when I came back she had already begun to arrange a space on the floor big enough for us to fit together while she slept. The fact that she wanted so desperately to be that close to me made me tingle with joy.

We finished making the little nest like structure together and shortly after Bella collapsed onto the impromptu bed we had created. I turned off the light and then settled beside her. For a moment neither of us were exactly sure what to do. But then she rolled over and rested her palm upon my chest, nestling into the crook of my arm. I responded by pulling her closer wrapping myself around her, holding her to me. She sighed. Eventually her breath became even and deep, her heart slowed to a sleeping pace.

Even in the dark I watched her chest rise and fall with each breath, watched her eyes flick in REM sleep, watched as she slept peacefully, looking more like an angel than anyone had the right to. The night passed with such quickness that I felt as though she had scarcely fell asleep before she awoke once more. Her sleep talking had been unintelligible, but as far as I could tell she had not had any nightmares that night.

The beauty she exhibited in her sleep was surpassed only by her exquisiteness as she woke. It was something I had never gotten to witness because I always had to leave before she got up. But that first instant when her eyes opened and they were so warm and filled with sleep, that first smile before she buried her face in my shoulder murmuring a quiet good morning was so adorable, so undeniably endearing that I had to laugh. This only served to embarrass her further, at which point she rolled away from me and hid beneath the blanket she had pulled on to herself. Without expelling much effort I pulled the blanket away from her face and met her eyes before meeting her lips for a kiss.

She surprised me by returning the kiss with more passion that I thought she would muster so soon after waking. Her whole body seemed to come alive, shocked into awareness when I kissed her. She pulled me close, her arms around my neck. I acquiesced without thinking, wanting just as desperately to be near to her. I wanted to press my body to hers, hold her close to me and feel her lips on mine. But that was so dangerous. I had spent the whole night beside her, true, but now she was pushing my control.

I pulled back gently and she uttered something like a growl. I almost laughed. I would have if I hadn't seen the look in her eyes, frustration, need, longing. I knew those feelings. I wanted her just as badly as she wanted me. I was desperate for her, to hold her, to have her for my own in every way there was to have a person. But I couldn't do that. It wasn't safe to have Bella that way. She was human. I would hurt her. That wasn't something I could allow.

When I didn't move any further away Bella reached for me again. At that point I had to move. I sat up, shrinking away from her. She frowned.

"Bella, please understand this has nothing to do with what I want. If I could have my way there would be no boundaries. But as it stands it is far too dangerous to be that close to you. I'm sorry," I whispered. She sighed in defeat but nodded and sat up as well, rubbing at her eyes. She requested I show her where the bathroom was so she could have a minute to get herself together. She gathered some clothing and I showed her the bathroom. She smiled at me, kissed my cheek and then closed the door. I heard the shower start a moment later and went downstairs. I found Esme in the kitchen, staring at the stove quizzically. She was trying to figure out what to make Bella for breakfast. On the counter beside her were various mixes, ingredients and recipes for pancakes, waffles, French toast, crepes, every kind of egg imaginable, bacon, hash browns, sausage and fresh squeezed orange juice.

"I did some late night shopping," she explained before I could ask. I nodded and looked around the kitchen.

"I just don't know what to make," she confessed. I calmly ushered her away form the stove and without pause began putting things together. I hadn't cooked in a very long time. But if someone were going to make breakfast for Bella, it would be me. My mother would do no such thing.

"Edward, please, I want to do this," she said sternly. I sighed.

"Esme, don't worry. I will take care of it today. Tomorrow I promise you can cook for her, okay?"

She nodded apprehensively and stepped back letting me take over. I followed the recipe for pancakes and scrambled eggs, finishing making them on the first try right as Bella came downstairs. She took one look at me in the apron I had put on as a precaution and laughed. I scowled but held the plate of breakfast out to her. She said nothing but nodded in thanks and she pushed her damp hair over her shoulder. She sat and ate her food, praising my culinary abilities on and on through the whole meal. When she was full I took the plate and washed it in the sink before placing it in the cupboard where it belonged. Esme had cleaned up the kitchen while Bella ate.

I was about to ask Bella what she would like to do when a panicked screech of my name shattered the stillness of the air.

Alice tore into the house and made it to me in seconds. She tossed me the day's paper and I looked down at the headline, reading it with terror.

**Mystery Boy Deflects Bullet in Heroic Rescue. New Superman?**

The article went on to describe the incident from the night before, exactly what had transpired along with a description of me, and a tip line for anyone with information about me. I looked up at Alice whose face was grim and set.

"Tomorrow," she murmured.

Tomorrow the Volturi would come.

Tomorrow I would fight.

Tomorrow I might die.


	13. Calm Before the Storm

thanks to my readers and reviewers. and a special thanks to my BETA!!

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The change in Bella's eyes made it clear she understood what Alice's cryptic one word had meant. The Volturi would be here tomorrow and she had figured it out.

"No," she whispered. It was either disbelief or denial but either way she refused to believe that Alice could be right. I didn't want to believe it either. That gave me so little time. If I was going to fight and die for her that only gave me a day with the woman I loved as opposed to the weeks I had been expecting. I had been hoping for time. I had been _praying_ that I would get time with my Bella. Now it seemed I would not. It saddened me so immensely to think of dying tomorrow, of leaving my Bella and never seeing her lovely face again. How I would miss her.

"I'm afraid so, Bella. That has become certain though other things are not," Alice answered softly. The despair she exuded, the sadness that came off of her was almost tangible. I could feel it as though receiving it empathetically. If this was what Jasper dealt with on a daily basis I pitied him. To feel such sadness, such _hurt_ and not even know why would drive me mad. But I knew why. In her mind, Alice was trying desperately to keep me out of the visions she had. She didn't want me to see what was going to happen, or what might happen.

_Please, Edward, please don't look._

I wanted to trust her. I wanted to just agree to that plea and avoid her mind until she was either ready to show me or the things simply came to pass. But I needed to see. I needed to know if there was something I could do to help Bella. If there were something I could do to keep her alive I would have to do it, even if it meant I was hurt or killed.

"Alice."

"You don't want to, Edward. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want to see these things. I know you are only doing this because you are trying to help Bella, but if there were something of use in these visions I would tell you. There isn't. All you will get is nightmares," she warned. I closed my eyes and breathed out a sigh.

"We don't sleep, Alice." I reminded her. She glared at me.

"Do you think that exempts you from being haunted by things you wish you could forget?"

I knew what she was trying to say. It hadn't been literal nightmares she was warning me against, only the memories of the things I would see that would never leave my mind no matter how hard I tried. I knew that once I had seen them I could not un-see them. They would stay with me for eternity.

"Please," I begged, regardless of the things I knew and her warnings. I knew she was only trying to protect me. But I needed to see them for myself, in case she had missed something. I glanced over at Bella and then Alice did as well. She rubbed her temples as though she had a headache and then nodded.

I closed my eyes to focus my mind and better see her visions. I thought I could handle it.

I was wrong.

I had gotten better at focusing Alice's visions when she sent them to me or when I caught them accidentally. But nothing I had done, no mental training, no technique, no steeled resolve or noble intention kept me from being shocked as I saw in my mind's eye her visions.

They would make me watch as they killed her because of my insolence. I had shouted at them, insulted them in my anger because they were threatening her. Aro's jovial demeanor had faded and become angry. They tore her apart. They held me back and shed her blood upon the ground as she screamed in pain.

I felt my knees hit the ground as I collapsed. But it wasn't over yet. Not even close.

A separate vision of Bella in Volterra during the change. She was crying and screaming and begging for death. She was asking for someone to make it stop. And I was there with her, just feet away and yet unable to go to her. I was being held back again. She was in such pain and I couldn't help her. Even if I had been able to touch her there was nothing I could have done but they deprived her of even the slightest comfort because of me.

The next was by far the worst. I couldn't watch and yet I couldn't make it stop. Aro was curious about her, about her ability to block out our abilities and what she knew of our world. He told everyone he thought she knew more than she was admitting. So he had her tortured. I was not present for this atrocity. But I was seeing it through the vision. I watched as she was broken. She was reduced to nothing through pain and torture and the promise of death. She begged for it over and over, pleaded for someone to make the pain stop. No one did. I did not see the full duration of the horrors that would occur but I could tell that it would go on for hours. I didn't know how those vampires could stand being in the room with so much blood until I realized it was humans dragging scream after scream out of her.

When Alice released me from her vision I was on the floor, curled into a ball. Bella was beside me, her hands touching me delicately, trying to figure out what was going on, how to help me. There was nothing she could do. Those visions, her beautiful face twisted in agony, in unimaginable pain for what seemed like eternity, would haunt me until the day I died. I wanted nothing more than to forget them, to go back and just accept Alice's advice. If I could have cried then I would have. As it was I was shaking violently. I felt ill, off, even though I knew I could not get sick. I remained on my side, huddled on the ground with Bella's face hanging close to mine for a few minutes before enough strength returned to my body to sit up. It was another few minutes still before I could stand.

I thought quick death for this angel was a sin. It was nothing compared to what they could do to her. I never thought they would be vindictive enough to torture her, draw out her death in such despicable ways, but I overestimated their humanity. They didn't have any. She was nothing to them. Killing her was the least they could do to her. Pain, so much mind-shattering pain, would be inflicted upon her beloved body and they would think nothing of it. My beautiful Bella deserved no such Hell.

How could one look upon such a creature and cause her pain? How could one see her and not want to protect her, keep all pain from her? I wanted nothing more than to make sure that no single moment of hurt encountered her ever again. How could I do that if the Volturi were set on killing her mind and soul long before they killed her body?

"None of that is set in stone, Edward. I showed you only some of the things I have seen as a possibility. I cannot say for sure what will happen once the Volturi arrive. But know that those things could come to pass. You must be careful," Alice told me quietly as I sat on one of the chairs in the dining room. I was still reeling, trying to make the nausea go away and regain my strength. For the moment I still felt so weak and shaky, so unable to control my body that I only felt more unnerved.

And I simply could not look at Bella. Every time I did all I saw was her screaming in pain, calling out for mercy, saying anything and everything they wanted to hear for a reprieve. I could not meet those gorgeous chocolate brown eyes without fearing I would see that look of terror and anguish in them. Until she finally caught my face in her hands and forced me to look into her eyes. I focused on her calm face, her pale skin, her gentle smile. I forced the vision of her pain from my mind. She was fine and if I had anything to say about it she would remain fine. They would not hurt her.

That resolve brought back some strength. I would not let them hurt her. She did not deserve such pain. She did nothing to warrant death or torture.

"What did you see?" Bella asked quietly. I shook my head. I would not tell her of the horrible things I had witnessed being done to her. She nodded as though understanding that some things could never be told aloud. Some things were too horrible to ever be let into the air, shared with the world. Even as I promised myself that such things would never happen to her, as I promised myself they would not have her or hurt her I was terrified. I had just gotten her. I could not lose her now. It would destroy me.

Alice left us alone soon after that, discreetly exiting the room almost unnoticeably. I needed time with her alone. I needed Bella. She settled herself against me, almost awkwardly as though she was unsure of herself. She was perfect. That confusion over how this worked was comforting. I was glad I was not the only one that did not know exactly how love was supposed to be. It was different for every person, that I knew. It was obvious just looking at the way my parents loved each other as opposed to Rose and Emmett or Jasper and Alice. Each was different in the way they showed affection though I knew they loved the other with intensity. So where did that leave Bella and I? I loved her immensely, but I wasn't sure _how_ to love her.

"Bella?" I asked quietly, afraid she was sleeping and I was going to wake her. She opened her eyes and tilted her face to look into mine. I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers softly before backing away to speak to her.

"We don't have a lot of time. And I don't know what else to say other than that I love you and I am so sorry for involving you in this. I promise I will do whatever I can to keep them from getting to you," I murmured quickly. She smiled softly and nodded, wordlessly accepting my promise. She didn't doubt me; I could see that in her expression. Her trust in me was explicit. Perhaps in gaining strength over my craving for her blood she had begun to overestimate my power. My abilities were far exceeding her own, and because of my talent, exceeded those of many of my kind as well. But against the Volturi, singularly, I would not be enough to keep them back from something they wanted. I knew that. I was just too afraid and ashamed to tell her so.

"I know you will do everything you can," she said finally. I pressed my lips to her forehead while silently praying that everything I could do would be enough.

It had to be.

For a long time we did nothing but sit and hold each other. While I was curious about her—I wanted to know everything she had ever done in her life, ever wanted to do—the silence was so much more intimate than speaking could ever have been. Just to have her close to me, feeling her heart beat, watch her chest rise and fall in steady rhythm and gaze into those deep brown eyes was the most rewarding experience I had ever had the privilege to take part in.

Around noon we got up from our resting place so Bella could eat. She insisted on making her own lunch, which I acquiesced to. I watched her fumble through my kitchen, making a sandwich, then eating, appearing self-conscious as I stared completely unabashedly at her. She was the most magnificent creature on the planet. I told her so, several times, in several different ways. Each time she blushed and shook her head as though she did not believe me. I would spend the rest of the day convincing her of her beauty and splendor, taking time to detail exactly what I loved about her, which was everything. By the end of the afternoon I had remarked upon every physical attribute, every personality quirk, every idiosyncrasy and habit. She still seemed doubtful. I promised there was nothing about her I didn't love.

"Even my clumsiness?" she inquired. I nodded.

"Of course. Its adorable, and it gives more excuses to hold you," I told her. She flushed, delighted. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a similar silence to the morning. Bella fell asleep in my arms. I had tried to convince her that she should lie on the couch but she insisted she was comfortable against my chest though it was comparable to a boulder.

In her sleep she spoke more nonsense.

And then I smelled the salt of her tears and felt a warm, damp spot on my shirt. I glanced down at her sleeping face to see tears running down her cheeks silently. For long moments she said nothing. Her face was contorted in a look of pain, too familiar to Alice's vision. I had to look away, covering my eyes with one hand because I just couldn't see her in such anguish, either in her sleep or anywhere else.

"Please," she mumbled. I wanted to ask her what she meant. Please what? What was she dreaming? I wished I could know what she was thinking, what her mind was creating. How I wished I could make her tears stop, make her mind ease back into peace. But how could she be at peace when she knew it was possible she would die tomorrow? How could she relax when she knew I had seen terrible things that were so horrifying that I couldn't even tell her?

She only slept for another twenty minutes, but through each of those minutes she cried. When she woke it was with a start, as though she was surprised into consciousness. Her eyes were red and damp with tears. She rubbed at them when she sat up suddenly. She glanced at me and then down at my shirt where her tears had puddle and began to apologize. I stopped her words with a kiss and pulled her back into my embrace. She needn't apologize for crying in her sleep.

I was going to ask her what her dream had been about but something in her eyes made me stop. They seemed too full of emotion still, too close to spilling over. I didn't want to make her remember whatever horror it had been—reliving the murder of the rapist she had killed or any other nightmare—and cause her to cry again. I wanted to remember her smiling, happy, if we were both going to have a run in with the Volturi the next day.

The family arrived almost at the same time as though summoned. We sat together and talked, discussing anything and everything but the Volturi and what was going to happen the next day. I was terrified. I could tell I wasn't the only one. Their thoughts could not avoid subjects as easily as their words did and they found themselves thinking about what would happen the next day more often than I liked. They couldn't help it, and neither could I. I tried so hard to focus on the present, to focus on Bella in my arms, laughing at Emmett or simply speaking or breathing and remaining silent. Every second seemed like a miracle, every minute a blessing. I wasn't worthy of such wonders. Was that why she was being taken from me? Was it because I was undeserving, a creature of damnation pulling down an angel? Was this punishment, knowing bliss and having it yanked out from under my feet?

If so I was prepared to deal with the pain of having Bella taken from me, if it was of her own free will. If she left me I would be devastated, so much so I knew I could never recover. But I would let her go. I would feel my body being torn apart with every step she would take away from me, and yet I would watch her go with no argument. Because what she wanted, what she needed, was far more important than my wants and needs. But if she was _taken_, stolen from me without her consent or mine I simply could not stand for that. She was my mate, my love, the only one I would ever want for eternity. Punishment or not, she would not be harmed because of my sins.

It was two in the morning before I looked at the time. Bella was likely to be exhausted regardless of the nap she took. She didn't look tired but I could see the beginnings of fatigue around her eyes.

"Time for the human to sleep," I whispered to her while the others continued to talk. She shrugged with annoyance, as though she felt left out, being the only one that needed to sleep. Vampirism was not some exclusive club to which my family belonged, it was a curse that we were made to suffer. She did not seem to understand that fully.

Because of that, she might lose her life.

She stood when I asked her to go sleep regardless, leaning against me to help her up the stairs. In order to prevent any unnecessary injuries I picked her up and carried her up the stairs, walking at a human pace if only to prolong the amount of time she spent in my arms. I wanted to spend forever just like that, holding her close with no distractions or interruptions. But I knew that was wishful thinking. It would not happen.

Equally bashful, we made sure we were in separate rooms when she changed into clothes to sleep in. She was embarrassed of herself and I was embarrassed at what my reaction might be. If I was unable to restrain myself, if I needed to touch her, hold her against me, I didn't want to be in the same room as her when she was changing. As much as I loved her, I respected her with an equal intensity. I would not do anything that made her feel uncomfortable or put her in any more danger than she already was under other circumstances in my presence.

She opened my bedroom door when she was done and I found her already lying on the floor, nestled in the blankets we had set up as a bed for the two of us. I lowered myself to the floor beside her, pulling her close without a single second of hesitation. We were silent for a long time. And then she spoke.

"If I don't get the chance to tell you tomorrow…today…I just want you to know that I love you, Edward. No one has ever meant so much to me as you do. Whatever happens next, for good or bad, to whatever end, please know that I won't ever stop loving you," she whispered, all the while staring transfixed into my eyes. Her words were more moving than I thought words could be. I brought her hands to my mouth, pressing my lips to her palms gently.

"Oh, Bella," I said quietly.

"One more thing, Edward. Please make me a promise," she said.

"That depends on what the promise is," I told her.

"Promise me that if things start to go badly, if they start to get dangerous, you won't put yourself or your family into unnecessary danger."

"I can't promise that, Bella."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because your definition of unnecessary danger and mine most likely differ drastically. If they are threatening you or hurting you, it would be necessary to act, even if you feel it would be dangerous. I won't stand by and watch as the woman I love is put in peril."

She glowered at me, clearly hoping that this discussion would have gone better. But how could she expect me to simply watch as horrible things were said and done to her? Her idea of unnecessary danger would most likely things that I didn't get involved in, which was completely unacceptable. If she needed my help, which she likely would, she would get it. I would not be passive in this case. My soul would be damaged irreparably if I were. It would almost be as great a transgression to watch her be hurt or killed as it would to be the one killing or hurting her.

"Sleep, my love. You need your rest," I murmured. With a final annoyed look she buried her face against my chest and shortly after her breathing and heart rate denoted sleep. When I knew she was deep in slumber I slipped away, knowing I would only be gone for a short time. I could not leave her for very long, especially not now.

I crept down the stairs silently, careful not to wake her. I found my family sitting almost exactly as they had been before we left. Their thoughts turned to me as I entered the room; a mix of pitying laments and resigned grief. They felt bad for me, for the position I was in here. Finding love and losing it so quickly was unfair. Even Rose felt bad for me. Their pity only worsened my already growing heartache. She wasn't even gone and already I felt this unearthly pain in my chest. In Jasper's thoughts I could hear the reflection of my pain in him. It was hurting him almost as much as it was hurting me. He begged me to make it stop, but I didn't know how.

"Edward, I will try to reason with the brothers, I will attempt to make them see reason where Bella is involved, but we both know I cannot promise you anything. Being unpredictable is something they take pride in. However, mercy is not a common thing among them," Carlisle said quietly. I nodded wordlessly. I could not speak. There was nothing left for me to say. I could explain to them again how much I loved her, I could tell them I would lay down my life a thousand times, over and over for the rest of my life if only to keep her with me. And if I couldn't keep her with me, only to keep her safe. She deserved safety above all else. There was so much else she should have, but if I could give her nothing else, I would give her that.

"We will help you however we can," Emmett assured me. While it was nice to know I had his support I still felt terrified. When it came down to it, even Emmett's muscle could not save us. It all depended on the Volturi, on their mood and temperament when they arrived. It was possible they would leave us alone. It was more likely however that they would destroy Bella and anyone who stood in their way, which would mean me at the very least. I nodded again, still without words. And then it was somehow agreed that the conversation was over and I should go back to Bella. So I did. I spent the rest of the night by her side, watching her sleep, watching her breathing, listening to her heart. I admired her beauty, her tranquility, her very being.

When she woke she looked at me with her big brown eyes and there was something there, some acquiescent sadness as though she had already admitted defeat and was knowingly walking into her death. It made me want to cry, to curse the body I inhabited because I was unable. I should be able to cry for her. I should be able to weep as she could, let the tears fall as a manifestation of the pain I felt for her. But I could not. Just as I could not sleep beside her, I could not feel our hearts beat in rhythm, walk around with her on a sunny day, cook and eat a dinner together, have a child, make love to her…the list went on. There were so many things I could not do for or with her that I wanted to be able to. I wanted to be able to give her so much and yet I found that my body with all its advantages was inhibiting me. My strength and speed did nothing for me when I wanted to clutch Bella to me forcefully. My keen senses could not protect her against my blood lust. The things about me that made me extraordinary only damned me further.

"Good morning, dearest," I whispered before kissing her forehead lightly. She snuggled closer to me and kissed me in earnest, touching her lips to mine, wanting the comfort of touch. I was willing to provide it if she was in such need, more than willing in fact. The kiss went on as long as I was able to control myself and when I felt my control stretched to the breaking point I pulled away with an immeasurable amount of reluctance. When she opened her eyes again they were warm and soft, gentle with affection. I smiled at her, watching a similar expression spread over her face.

The good mood did not last however. After she dressed we went downstairs and found my family scattered about the house. I watched Alice as Bella ate the breakfast that Esme made for her. Her mind was scattered. She was concentrating so hard on the immediate future and what was going to happen with the Volturi. She wasn't getting anything new for the moment. But she wouldn't stop concentrating, dead set on making sure nothing slipped past her. She was determined to collect as much information as she could.

Silence, heavy and thick, coated the house. No one spoke. There was hardly any movement, and when there was, it seemed to deafen me, filling the air with too much noise. We were all waiting. It was like when a storm approached. You felt the air close in around you, felt the crackling of the electricity in the air, felt the pressure building. This was so similar to watching the sky and waiting for the first raindrop or bolt of lightening. You knew it was going to happen. You didn't know when. The tension would not break until it did, and we were all waiting, watching.

"Ten minutes," Alice said suddenly. I had been in and out of her mind for the whole of the morning, watching her visions and listening to her thoughts. I had taken a break for a while, focusing instead on the beauty in my arms when she made the exclamation. We all turned to her.

"I just saw them. They have already killed the others. They arrived last night. When they…read through some of the tips the reporter had gotten, the name Cullen came up. They are on their way. Nine minutes now," she said quietly, staring past us at the wall.

I looked back at Bella, whose face had become a mask of forced calm. She was trying to keep it together and was doing a magnificent job. I was proud of her courage in the face of such danger.

"This is it, my love," I whispered. She smiled softly at me, a smile full sadness. Her hands came to either side of my face and she rested her forehead against mine. Words of love passed between us without speaking. Her eyes conveyed all I needed to know. Minutes passed. I counted each one as though it was a gift.

Right on time a sharp rapping came at the door. We all looked at each other and finally Esme rose and answered the door. With a forced smile, Esme invited the guests in.

Through the front door came first a procession of Volturi guard, Jane, her brother Alec, Demitri and Felix. Next came Caius, followed closely by Marcus and finally Aro. I felt Bella stiffen as they entered, knowing by instinct who it was she was to fear. The last three were the brothers, the epitome of my kind. They seemed frail and weak and yet they were anything but. The Volturi were ruthless killers, merciless beings that took into account nothing but their own desires and what they thought was for the 'greater good'. While it was true that they often solved problems that could escalate out of control without their assistance, in some cases they intervened where it was unnecessary.

"Carlisle, how delightful to see you again, old friend," Aro exclaimed. He was the most boisterous of the three brothers. Carlisle rose and shook hands with all the brothers as the guard flanked the three protectively.

"Indeed it is quite the honor to have you in my home. You know my wife, Esme and my children, Rosalie, Emmett, Alice, Jasper, and Edward. The newest edition to our family is Isabella."

Carlisle thought it would be better to bring her up right away rather than leave them to find her on their own, which they were bound to do. They had smelled a human the moment they set foot in the house. They would know who she was and wonder why Carlisle had tried to keep her a secret. I was waiting for their response, their retribution for her humanity.

"A pleasure, Isabella," Aro answered cordially before turning and looking at me, who cradled her so protectively against my body. His thoughts were racing on about her strange presence in our house and what I could possibly want with her. He knew we did not feed on humans and so she was not food. But what was she doing here then? His confusion was shared by the rest of his party, each trying to understand her being with us and in such close proximity to me.

He looked back at her curiously and I felt her shudder under his gaze. She was trying so hard to be strong. I held her a little tighter and kissed her hair.

"Tell me, Edward," Aro said slowly, never taking his eyes off of Bella, "Exactly what is your relationship with this Isabella?"

I wondered briefly why he would ask me such things when Marcus could just as easily tell him our connection. His talent was sensing relationships. But in Marcus' mind his thoughts were mixing in such a confused state that even though he was sensing our relationship and was utterly surprised by its strength and magnitude, he was thinking of a hundred other things at the same time. Aro simply asked to get a straight answer from me.

"She is my mate," I answered. My family was the only ones who remained stoic. The rest of the group in our home had contorted their faces in either confusion or mockery.

"But she is a human," he responded.

"It doesn't matter. I love her. She loves me. She is mine and I am hers."

"Quite the maverick, your son," Aro said to Carlisle. He nodded simply and said nothing.

"You understand why this is a problem," Caius chimed in, watching both Bella and I.

"Exposure is no issue with Bella," I answered.

"Clearly it is, or we would not be here."

"She did not expose us. It was a journalist who just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As I understand it, you have already taken care of her so there is nothing left to worry about."

"She knows too much," Aro reminded me. I could not believe they were speaking so calmly about ending a life of a woman who was sitting only feet from them. They spoke so calmly of killing the most angelic creature on the face of the planet. She meant nothing to them, this I knew, it just seemed lunacy to be so flippant about her death. I shook my head. She would not be taken from me. I knew what could happen, what kind of death they could give her if it amused them. I would not give her over to that fate.

"Edward, you know we will do what we must," Aro said with quiet strength.

"You _cannot_ have her," I growled. The mood in the room shifted slightly then. Their thoughts went from controlled and annoyed to insulted. Who was I to tell them what they could and could not have?

"Edward," came Bella's tiny voice, "Maybe I should... "

"No, absolutely not." I shook my head as I looked at her. I would not allow her to sacrifice herself.

"Please," I said quietly. I knew sentiment meant nothing to them. Emotion was something they hardly remembered, let alone experienced. Even with Jasper's empathetic persuasion, they might not understand my plight. But I had to try. I had to. If this was the last thing I could do short of fighting for her, I had to try it.

"Why, Edward? What promise can you make us that she is no threat to us? What incentive do we have to let you keep her?" Caius asked skeptically. He was quickly wearing on my nerves.

Before I could answer, Carlisle chimed in.

"Perhaps we could speak privately, my friends. It has been so long since we have had enough time to catch up. Business can wait a while longer, can it not?" he asked quickly.

They looked to each other and then Aro smiled.

"Of course old friend, we can take some time to sit and discuss the times. It would be delightful. Business can wait," he said, eying Bella. I pulled her closer. They filed out of the room and up the stairs, following Carlisle to his study. The guard remained with the remainder of my family.

I eyed each of the guard. Powerful, talented and intelligent, each and every one of them. Their loyalty to the Volturi was strong. They would not be persuaded of anything the Volturi did not first agree to. I would not get any of them on my side.

"So, what do you have to eat around here?" Jane asked. I growled at her as her red eyes settled on Bella.

"She is not food," I snapped. She grinned wickedly and shrugged. I looked at my Bella again and saw something like detachment in her face. She had gone past fear. Now she was in survival mode, simply shutting down to keep from falling apart.

"Don't worry, my love, they won't hurt you," I whispered in her ear. Unconsciously she moved closer to me, comforted by my presence. Alec laughed as he watched us. I looked up at him and growled.

"Why do you promise her things you cannot be sure of?" he asked. The wicked smile on his face made me desperate to destroy him. But violence, however warranted, would not help our situation at this time.

"Oh I am quite sure of that, Alec. Touch her and you will understand just how sure I am," I warned. I was utterly serious.

Before he could respond Alice laughed brightly. I looked over to her and saw a smirk on her face. I arched an eyebrow and she laughed again.

"Sorry, I just had a vision of Alec testing you. It was sort of funny," she explained. She could have simply thought that message to me, but she wanted the whole room to hear it.

The images sent at me were quick but entertaining. He came over and laid a single finger upon her skin. Before either of us could move Emmett grabbed him by his neck and moved him away from us. He struggled and was dropped unceremoniously on the ground before he could catch himself. While that would most likely be a detriment to our cause it was mildly humorous. I chuckled once before looking back at Alec. His face was set and calm. But he did not move. I smiled politely at him, not missing my chance to seem victorious for the moment. I might not get another chance.

And then we waited.

The storm was yet to hit.

But it was coming soon.


	14. Different

Yay updates!! thank you so much for the reviews! Oh yeah and my Beta? Pretty much amazing. )

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Though I was endlessly curious about what was being said between my father and the three ancient vampires in the upper level of my home I was more invested in paying attention to Bella. It occurred to me that these moments might be the last ones I was given with her. I was not about to waste them.

Her eyes were soft and warm, so comforting and gentle. I fell into them, lost within their depths and tenderness. Below the eyes, the perfect slope of her nose, the ever-flushed cheeks and then one of my favorite parts, her perfect, full lips. Because I could not help myself I lowered my face to hers and kissed her slowly. I was gentle with her, wanting to communicate love rather than urgency. Every move she made, every point of contact between her lips and mine seemed earth shattering. I was drowning in her scent, her heat, her silken touch. I wished to stretch those moments forever, to make them last until the end of eternity.

The fact that it was an impossibility struck me forcefully and caused me to pull away from her. She looked surprised and confused. I took another long moment, staring into her eyes, the most beautiful things this earth had ever seen and then grabbed her face and kissed her vigorously. I pulled her close, pressing my body against her as closely as I could. I needed her close, I needed her _now_. The qualms I had against making love to her seemed foolish now. I wanted to be with her, as close to her as completely as was possible. I could have kept from hurting her, I could have controlled myself. I wished with every fiber of my being that I had taken my opportunity to be with her in every single way possible. Lust was a part of it, surely, that was undeniable. But there was something deeper, a physical need to place my skin against hers and feel her warmth upon me. A need to breathe in tandem with her, to watch her fall asleep in my arms again, to get closer to her than I could to anyone else.

It was possible that now I would never get the chance.

"Could you please stop slobbering all over each other, its disgusting," Jane said dryly, her high voice sounding cutting even as it rang sweetly. I turned and glared at her before placing one final kiss upon Bella's lips and then holding her against my chest. Her heart was pounding in her chest, thumping hard and fast as her breathing slowed. She was clutching to me as desperately as I was clutching to her. I wondered if she was thinking along the same lines as I was.

It wasn't until after this that I realized my father was returning. They hadn't taken very much time to catch up. It wasn't long enough. The brothers were all calm and content now, happy to have seen their friend and discussed their current life. But the coming business was on the horizon of their minds. They would soon turn their attentions back to Bella.

They approached us slowly, my father first and the brothers in tow. They all noted Bella's and my proximity and Aro raised a questioning eyebrow. He was not surprised that we wanted to be close to each other, only that we had managed to do it without Bella getting hurt.

The guard stiffened at the presence of their masters. Their thoughts suddenly centered around the wills of their masters and nothing else.

"Edward, your father has told us some very interesting things about the life you created here. It is wonderful to see you all flourishing so. And yet this life you have created has lead to exposure. We have no choice. She knows too much about us now to be allowed to simply roam free. Think of the things she could tell people," Aro reasoned. I could not. I _would_ not. I didn't care what was reasonable or logical. I cared about Bella and my love for her. My knowledge of the risks clearly had not dissuaded me so far.

"I wont," Bella said, speaking for the first time since their arrival. All eyes left Aro and went to tiny Bella, resting in my arms. She looked so strong then. Her eyes were set and resolved, her heartbeat slow and steady. I knew she could not be as calm as she pretended to be, but her strength made her so vibrant she seemed inarguably persuasive.

"Little Isabella, I am sure you believe that. But you would be surprised what a person will say under duress," Aro responded. She shook her head.

"I―" she began.

"My dear, I am sure you think you are different. And it is true, as far as I can tell you are quite the little creature, and yet I cannot take chances. We cannot make exceptions. Unless Edward intends to change you, we cannot leave here with you alive."

I could not change her. There was an endless list of reasons I would not do it, starting with the unimaginable pain she would experience, and continuing on to encompass the loss of her soul, the things she would never get to experience, the life she would miss and on.

"No. I wont do that to her," I said.

"You would rather see her dead than change her? You claim to love her and yet you cannot commit to keeping her with you for eternity?" Aro asked. Before I could respond, Marcus spoke up.

"It is because of this love that he keeps her human. As difficult as their relationship is, he does love her fiercely, of that I am certain. Their claim to each other is very final. Even in death I am not sure they would release their hold on each other."

I looked into his mind and saw in it a reflection of love. There was something inside Marcus that tied him to that one emotion. Perhaps it was his constant exposure to that emotion through sensing relationships but somehow he managed to keep a hold on it. It was the only emotion he managed to hold on to. Compassion was gone, mercy, caring, sympathy had left him. But love, the strongest and purest of good emotion still found a foothold somewhere in his ancient body. Amidst the cold sense of justice, the self serving interest in his wants and needs, the loyalty he felt to no one other than his brothers and himself and the lust for blood that pounded through him and caused him to murder, there was something warm.

He felt badly for me. Love was sacred in his mind, though he would never admit it aloud.

If I thought appealing to that sense of purity for that one emotion would do us any good, I would have pleaded with him endlessly. But I knew that if I were to bring that up, mention love and his true opinion of it he would only become angry. I wished there was a way to ask him to help me without exposing that particular sentiment to the whole room. I knew I could not. So I kept quiet.

"You may take a moment to say goodbye to her," Aro informed me. Those words were like being struck.

"Now? You're going to kill her _now_?" I asked, incredulous. They were not going to kill her _ever_ but I thought that if they gave us a few days I could at least think of something, some way to keep her safe from them. But they wanted to take her now. Take her light from the world; make it a bleaker, darker place. I simply could not allow it.

"No time like the present," he countered. The smirk in his eyes made me growl. He responded with a sly smile.

"I already told you, she is not for the taking."

Her narrowed his eyes at me and glanced at Alec and Felix. Their faces contorted into twisted smiles.

"No," I repeated. But they were already advancing on us. Alec and Felix came to Bella and I. I tightened my hold around her. I would not just let her go.

But then I was struck with unimaginable pain. My whole body seized and I was unable to move. It was Jane's power. She was torturing me through her mind, using her talent against me to bring me to my knees. I was no longer able to protect Bella if I could hardly move myself. I was clenching my fists against my sides, trying to keep from screaming in agony and somewhere, seemingly a universe away, I felt Bella being snatched away. But I couldn't concentrate. Every thought I had was shattered with pain.

And then suddenly the world came back into focus. I had the feeling it wasn't exactly Jane's power lessening as it was the scent of her blood in the air.

As hard as it was to resist her when all I could smell was her blood under her skin it was impossible when her blood overflowed into the air. The scent was maddening, but it brought me to reality. The pain was immense, but the _need_ for her blood seemed to rival the all-consuming anguish. Jane stopped torturing me a moment after my eyes snapped open. I looked over to my Bella, my darling girl. She was cradled in the arms of Felix as he drank her down. I growled, unable to control myself and sprang at them. I knocked them both to the floor, separating them. I wanted so badly to punish Felix. And yet her blood was screaming. Her scent filled me. I felt hunger like nothing ever before pull at me.

She was still breathing, her eyes still open. Her heartbeat was slowing. I wanted her blood, wanted to taste her. But when her chocolate eyes turned to me all thoughts of bloodlust were gone from my mind. It broke my heart. She was dying. I could hear it in the slowing of her heart, the gasping way she was breathing. But to see it in her eyes, to witness through the windows to her soul the process of her life slipping away literally pained me.

In a moment she would start to scream. She hadn't lost enough blood to die. Her body would change into something new, something different. Her soul would vanish and she would walk this earth, damned, until the day we all perished.

Her mouth opened. She was trying to speak. Nothing came out. A tear slipped down her cheek and hit the floor, followed quickly by another. I dropped to my knees by her side. I wanted to hold my breath and keep from wanting to finish the job and kill her. I couldn't. But even as I wanted her blood, wanted its taste in my mouth, those tears, that look of agony on her face was more than enough to subdue that craving.

No one moved for a moment. The brothers and the guard stilled completely, watching the exchange that was to follow. My family's thoughts were suddenly silent, anticipating the next moments as the guests were.

"Bella?" I asked quietly. She closed her eyes slowly before opening them again, more tears splashing down her face. She drew a shaky breath.

"Love you," she whispered. I lowered my lips to her forehead, her cheek, her lips. So close to the place her blood was spilling and pounding. I brushed away her tears with my lips, wanting to calm her. I didn't know what to do.

And then suddenly her body seized. She froze, and for an instant, the world froze with her.

And then it shattered.

The air was filled with the most heart wrenching sound the world had ever heard. I was tempted to cover my ears, but that would have meant pulling away from the woman I loved, and I refused to do that.

And then a thought struck me, and even though I wanted to remain calm and not scare Bella, I growled ferociously. The thought came from Aro. This was what he had wanted. At first Bella's existence has meant nothing to him, a human who needed to be eliminated and nothing more. But when he touched Carlisle's arm while they were speaking he discovered things about her that intrigued him. Her immunity to the talents of my entire family made him wonder. Her potential seemed worth the hassle of changing her.

I looked up at him with hate in my eyes. He looked at me, as though he did not know what was going on, this false innocence I found disgusting. But as angry as I was, as full of rage and hate as I was, the woman whimpering on the floor was more important that that. I pulled her into my arms and she let out a tiny shriek. She was not going through the most horrid pain of any person's existence on the floor of my living room. Alice silently thought an image of her bed to me and I nodded, picking Bella up carefully, trying not to jar her more than necessary.

She wasn't screaming then, only gasping desperate breaths, crying nonstop, crying out occasionally. I laid her in Alice's bed and watched as her body began to writhe, to try and purge itself of both the vampire venom that was coursing through her system and the human element of her body that was holding her back. I knew that everyone had followed us here, my family, the Volturi and their guard. I did not care. They were not important. The only woman I would ever love was being changed, forced into excruciating pain and she probably had no idea what was happening to her.

As much as I did not want to see her in this life, as vehemently as I would have protested this, I could not kill her. Between watching her through three days of pain and being with her forever with all the consequences that would follow or killing her I simply couldn't do what was right. She didn't deserve the hell she was in, nor did she deserve a life of eternal damnation. But I couldn't kill her. I simply couldn't. She was too precious, too sacred to be taken from the world. If I killed her, ended her life there on the floor, or here in Alice's bed I would need to die myself. I could not survive without her now.

She had closed her eyes then, breathing hard, panting almost, tears streaming down her face. I heard people leave as Bella shifted again, pain on her face. Carlisle and Aro were the only ones who stayed.

"If there is anything I can do, my son, please tell me," Carlisle said softly. I could feel him watching me; hear his pitying thoughts as they raced through his mind. He pained for Bella as he saw the change take her. He pained for me having to watch the woman I loved in anguish. So much hurt and no relief in sight. Three days of this torture. It was impossible to tell how sane I would be by the end of those three days.

After speaking his words Carlisle left, leaving only Aro as the unwelcome party. He stood in silence for a long time, his thoughts racing and jumbled. I did not want to waste my energy sifting through them. Bella was more important than he was.

"Quite the exquisite creature, if I do say so myself. You have chosen quite the interesting woman for your mate. Isn't it better now that she will be as you are, immortal, so she can share forever with you?" he asked. It pained me to do so, but I turned from Bella to respond to him.

"Do not attempt to lie to me about your motives, Aro. You did not have her changed because you want either of us to be happy. She is an experiment; a promising new vampire that you are hoping will be an asset to your team when the time comes for her to join you. Hear me now, Bella is an independent woman, free to make whatever choices she wants and do as she pleases. But with that in mind, she is also _mine_. Do not think you will take her from me. I have already told you, you cannot have her."

His face remained even and slightly amused, as though my words were entertaining.

"Edward, I wouldn't dream of stealing your lovely Bella away from you. But unless I am wrong, and I have not been wrong in quite some time, she will be quite the powerful woman once she is changed. You said so yourself, she is free to make her own choices. If she _chooses_ to come to us, for power and renown, I would not refuse her. Such a pretty little thing should never be denied her wishes," he drawled, looking at her far more closely than I was comfortable with.

"Get out," I growled, through clenched teeth.

"What was that?"

"GET OUT," I repeated, meeting his eyes and watching him react. He was not surprised at my anger, only the way I was shaking, how close I seemed to be to snapping. It was true I was on edge. I could hardly control the fury within me, the rage boiling under my skin like a fever. The only thing that held me back, the _only_ thing, was Bella. She needed me now and she would need me after the change. I would not leave her because I was foolish enough to attack one of the Volturi. He nodded with a sly smirk on his face and then exited the room, joining the others downstairs. I already knew they would not be leaving until Bella was changed and they had a chance to persuade her to go with them to Italy.

It was true, if it was power she craved she could easily acquire it from the Volturi. They could open doors to her no one else could, bring her to a world where she would be revered and respected. If that was what she wanted…I would have no choice but to let her go, as I had always known I would if she chose someone other than me. It would kill me. I would never get over it, but if she wanted to go I would not stop her. I would beg for her not to go, plead on my knees, promise her anything she could ever want if she would but stay with me, but I would not force her. That was not my way.

Turning my attention back to the woman shaking and moaning on Alice's bed I stroked her forehead, which was hot and slick with sweat and watched as she shuddered. She opened her mouth again and nothing came out. Silence lay heavily upon us for a few moments, followed by another heart breaking scream.

I did not remember ever crying in my human life, nor was it possible to cry as a vampire. But I felt close to tears as I watched her in pain, shrieking, begging for it to stop and knowing that it wouldn't for _days._ My body _hurt_ as she writhed and screamed, clinging to the hand I had placed in hers, squeezing with all her might to help dull the pain that would not leave her.

Her body was dying, giving way to something else that would soon take its place. She would no longer be the human I loved. She would be like me, a vampire, an immortal creature. Would that really be so bad? Having her as indestructible as I was, as strong and fast as I was? Never having to be careful not to break her or pull away from her when all I really wanted was to draw her closer.

But it was so selfish of me to sit and want those things so vehemently when she was in anguish. Death would claim her humanity and her soul, leaving behind a woman I would love for the rest of eternity if she would let me, but who knew if this was what she wanted? Would it have been her choice to be changed into a monster if she had been able to choose? Would she want to suffer so immensely only to be a creature that was damned as I was?

Would _I_ be enough to make her pain, the loss of her life, the things she would miss, all tolerable?

Her eyes opened and stared at me, wide and still beautiful. There was recognition in them along with agony, and that seemed to make things worse. To know that she was hurting so much and she knew me, knew I was here, recognized my face through that pain…it was unbearable. I brushed my fingertips over her face slowly and she closed her eyes again, clenching her jaw. She squeaked, trying to keep a scream in.

"Oh my love. Let me go get some ice for you," I said softly, afraid to even be loud around her for fear I would hurt her more. I rose to go downstairs and as I reached the door she gasped again.

"Stay," she whispered. I looked back at her and she was looking at me. She took a deep breath and then spoke again. "I don't…need ice…just…you."

There was nothing could do but go to her. I went back across the room and sat on the edge of the bed with her, touching her face and just being with her, hoping that was some sort of comfort.

That day passed so slowly I didn't think there would ever be such a long day for the rest of eternity.

I was wrong.

The next day was infinitely worse than the first. It seemed there was not a single moment in which she didn't scream or shout. Her tears were constant. She was shrieking, filling the air with constant noise and there was nothing I could do for her. I desperately wanted to take her pain away. If it were possible to take it into myself I would have. But all I could do was watch.

Alice stopped by once during that second day to attempt to relieve me of my duty of watching over Bella. I refused to leave. The thought of her screaming and not being there to at least attempt to comfort her make me feel uneasy and almost physically ill. I knew Alice was acting under the best intention, but I simply couldn't leave her, even for my own sanity. I did have Alice go retrieve some ice and Bella seemed to enjoy a bit of relief when it was passed over her burning skin.

The change was like a preview of the fires of hell; a sort of warning that should you die after being changed you would have only that to look forward to. It made me angry to think of her being doomed to the fire and brimstone because of the selfish motives of an ancient vampire with no thoughts of anyone but himself.

I promised myself I would save my anger until after Bella was changed and not in constant misery. When that time came I was not completely sure what I was going to do. I didn't know if there was anything I could do other than be angry. I had time to think about it, and if in the end there was nothing to do but brood and retain hatred for the conniving minds that had put my mate in such a position, that was what I would do.

As night fell she began to call my name. It made me ache to hear her scream for me and know there was nothing I could do. I ran ice over her skin but she seemed not to feel even that minor relief. I sang to her, songs I had learned over the years, anything I could think of. I didn't know if it was registering to her that I was even speaking, but I hoped that it was. She hadn't opened her eyes in hours but I wanted her to know I was still here with her. I didn't want her to think she was alone.

I told her I loved her an uncountable number of times. I told her how beautiful she was, how magnificent, how glorious every chance I got. When she was quiet, in the rare moments that held her silence, I told her these things. I didn't know what kind of comfort she would get from them, but I didn't know what else to say to her.

The night passed and broke into day. The sheets were drenched in her sweat and had her blood and tears on them. The room stank of death and a pungent sweet smell that was the very essence of Bella. She had stopped thrashing so much, finding simply squirming slightly and crying out to be enough. It was almost worse than when she would scream and writhe about. It was as if she was giving up, finally just accepting her fate and no longer fighting for her life. Death was taking her, bringing her to another existence and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was done trying to overcome what was taking her over. She was too weak to fight it anymore. She probably thought she was dying, if she was able to form a coherent thought. What would she think when she woke from the pain and found herself a vampire? Would she hate me for not killing her when I had the chance? Would she ask me to end her life after she awoke, knowing what she was? Would she choose our way of life, or become a killer so like the heartless Volturi?

So many questions, and none of them would be answered for at least a day, if not more.

She was quiet for the last day. She whimpered and whined, occasionally letting out one single scream, but they were always short lived. Her tears were constant as they had been the other days, her skin just as hot as it had been from the start. No one stopped by this day. Her body was finally finishing what it had started. She would no longer be human in mere hours.

Through this day I was too afraid to fill the quiet. I didn't know what to say to her. I wanted to tell her something that would be meaningful, that she would remember even after the change, even after the pain had ebbed. But there was nothing. I had no words left in me. I had _nothing_ left in me but the love for her I was clinging to so desperately. It was all I had left of my sanity. My love for her was what was keeping me from going stark raving mad. I needed it, needed her more than any other time. She was here, though she was in agony, but it was enough. My love for her kept me tethered here. The feelings I had for her had gripped me in so many places, that it was impossible to simply disappear within myself as I wanted if she was still here. If she had been dead it would have been no trouble, but for the moment, she was here and with me and thusly I could not go.

Through the last hours she fell into a sort of sleep, closer to catatonia really. She hardly moved beyond the constant rise and fall of her breath. She didn't make a single sound. It was disconcerting really, to know she must have been conscious, there was no way she could have slept, and yet she lay there unmoving and silent.

That last night was passed uneasily. She was too still, to quiet, for my liking. I would not move her or ask her to speak though, I would not incite more pain than she was already in.

The last few hours were the hardest. Knowing that so soon would be the most beautiful woman in the world, no longer technically a woman but a vampire, a creature that could rip a woman such as she had been apart made me uneasy. She would be different in body, but would she be different in mind as well? Would her heart have changed and want different things? The change was just that, a drastic altering of everything you were. I sighed as the sun began to rise. This was the eye of the storm. It was not over, only half way through. We had gotten through the first part of it, managed to hold on while it raged around us. But what if we couldn't hold out for the second half?

As the day grew on I waited for her to come back to me. Her breathing had stopped, her heart had ceased it feverish pounding. Her body was dead. But she was not.

I estimated the time she was changed to be around eleven in the morning. Eleven came and went and still she did not rouse. When noon went by I gently pressed my hand against her forehead. Her skin was the same temperature as mine, cold as death. She was like me now, she had to be. She had lasted through the change; she had managed to survive the pain of it, the burning fires under her skin. But she was not opening her eyes.

"Bella?" I said quietly. She did not stir. My hand trembled as I gently shook her. Still nothing.

My sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the room; my stumbling to the door, trying not to stare at the woman I loved on my sister's bed but finding that impossible was the only movement. I staggered out the door, into the hall, falling over twice on my way down the stairs. I had been beside her for almost two hours and she had been…dead. Her body had indeed given up, but not to being a vampire, to death. I should have known something so pure and wonderful could never be turned into something so grotesque as I was. Angels could not fall so far as to be one of my kind.

I fell once more on the way away from her, and this time I stayed down. I simply could not stay on my feet. I lay there on the floor, not breathing in order to keep her scent from my nose and mouth. She had saturated this part of the house, her scent filling it. I convulsed as I lay there. I could not move of my own volition. The world was empty now. There was nothing for me here.

"Edward?" Alice's soft voice seemed too loud then, too real for this moment.

"Go away, Alice," I replied. I didn't recognize my own voice. It was empty and strained, so pained it hurt to hear it.

"You have us," she whispered.

"I have nothing."

She was dead. The love of my life, the most wonderful creature ever to grace the planet with her footsteps was dead. Her light had been extinguished, but only after days of insufferable pain. Her last moments had not been pleasant or calm, but filled with anguish and the minor relief I could give her with ice and promises of love.

"Edward…please," she said again.

I shook my head and finally looked up into her butterscotch eyes.

"Please what, Alice? What would you have me do? Go on without her? Live without the only person I have ever loved? You want me to exist here on this earth, damned, without the one person who ever made me feel like there might be a reason for it, who ever made feel like maybe I wasn't as wretched as I know myself to be. If Jasper were dead would you go on? Could you continue living like nothing had happened? Would you be able to get over it? We both know you wouldn't. The pain would consume you until either you found a way to kill yourself or simply starved to death. Since we have the Volturi conveniently located in our living room I thought perhaps I could make quick work of it and end it here."

"I know this hurts, Edward, but you must understand―"

"No, Alice you must understand," I said, finding the strength somewhere to get myself up from the floor and stand, leaning against the wall. "If she isn't with me, I don't want to go on."

My body was still shaking, unable to understand that she was dead and accept the loss of someone I needed so physically. We looked at each other across the hall for a moment and then she took a step toward me. Her eyes were so soft and full of pain and pity.

"She's gone, Alice," I murmured.

I had to say it to believe it.

She was gone.

She was dead.

My Bella, my love, my mate was gone.

I could not weather this storm.


	15. Prayer

Thanks so much for the reviews everybody!! And PLEASE dont kill me yet. I promise, everything will get worked out. I totally love my Beta, because she is AMAZING.

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There was so much silence after that. It seemed nothing would sound again. My family would not make any noise, too afraid to upset me with ill placed words. It was a futile effort, really, because their thoughts were far more ill placed than their words could have been. At least through speech I could have known this was real, I could have gotten over the surrealism of the moments that seemed to drag past me. The world seemed to have stopped on me. I had paused and yet everything else was passing quickly by me. My family, the Volturi and their guard, visions of objects and inconsequential things seemed to blur past me.

It was strange to think that time was indeed passing. That a day had gone by, almost a full twenty-four hours. Each hour, each minute, each _second_ felt like eternity. How could the world go on, how could anything continue when she had ceased to live?

And yet nothing mattered. Not the pitying thoughts of my family, the disappointed thoughts of Aro, the careful distance of Marcus, the way they all looked at me as though I had gone insane. All that mattered was the body of the most beautiful woman in the world that sat dead and cold in a bed above me and the pain that was creeping through every part of my body. It was infecting me like disease. It was like a cancer eating at me, slowly taking me over without question or second-guessing. I was powerless to stop it. If I tried anything—movement, speech, thought even—I felt a sharp twinge of pain shoot through me and viciously grab hold of me until I stopped. Never had I been so still and felt so lost. I wasn't moving but I felt like everything was moving away from me.

If this were insanity, I would not fight it.

"Edward," Carlisle said softly. His voice filled my ears and deafened me. So much noise. His voice was just so much noise after the seemingly endless silence. Even the slightest hint of a voice in my ear seemed to echo and eventually become her voice, her gentle pleas in her sleep, her pained screams. I turned to him and looked into his eyes carefully, ignoring the shrieking ache in my body as I did so.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked. He knew better than to placate me with promises that things would get better or I would be okay. He knew nothing would ever be okay again. Things would not get better. I felt another bolt of searing, burning pain through my body and shook again.

"Can you bring her back?" I asked, my voice trembling. Using my vocal chords caused a sort of dull throbbing in the deepest reaches of my body. Why should I speak, hear, see, feel, be conscious, if she were dead?

His expression was suddenly one of heartbreak. He felt so useless. He could not help me. He could not make this pain go away. He could not bring her back, could not bring my love to me, could not stay this ache.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. I clenched my jaw and nodded. I closed my eyes tight, as though I was fending off tears. I could not cry and yet it seemed like such a natural reaction to this feeling that was eating me alive. A tearless sob wracked my body, bringing me to the brink of utter insanity with the hurt that followed it. I had always perceived emotional pain to not be the sort of thing that could cause the body to hurt so badly. I had been so very wrong. If your mind and heart were so in love with someone that your body felt a physical need for them, when they were gone it was like going through withdrawal. I ached. I felt sick. I felt _tired_, something so unnatural it was almost as disquieting as the pain itself.

Carlisle went to leave. But I didn't want to be alone at that moment. Even though the person whose company I craved most was unavailable I needed someone to be with me. I couldn't be alone. I needed to say it, talk about it, make it known. I hoped perhaps that would help ease the pain. I knew that was an unlikely result and that really it wouldn't do anything other than make it hurt more as I spoke about it, but I wanted to try.

"I just don't understand," I said quietly. Carlisle turned and looked at me, his ocher eyes meeting mine. He urged me to go on not through words or thoughts but through the simple expression that crossed his face.

"On the logical level she survived so much of the change, I don't understand how she could just…die after so long. If you die during the change it is usually within the first few hours because there isn't enough blood to sustain your body. She made it through almost all three days. And then she was just gone."

"And on the illogical level?" he asked.

"Why did she have to go? What had she ever done but be wonderful? I loved her so much more than I thought it was possible to love another creature. My whole body needed her. And now I _hurt_, Carlisle, I hurt so much. How could she…she didn't deserve this."

He stared at me for a long time and for once his mind was more or less silent. I think it was because he didn't know what to say. When he did start to speak it was all improvised.

"I wish I knew what to tell you. I wish I had some answer that would make her death easier. But there are no words on earth that could make that happen. The woman you love is dead. But your love for her didn't die with her, which is the problem with losing a loved one. They don't take the affection you have for them when they go. That lingers. It won't ever go away. I can't take your pain away, as much as I long to. I can't bring Bella back, as much as I would love to do that for you. If I had that power, my son, know that I would have done it already. I…oh, Edward, I honestly don't know what to tell you."

I was shaking again. His words were enough. I knew he cared and it mattered to me to know that he understood this feeling at least in the smallest way he could. He nodded to me, seeming to understand and then left me. I stared after him for a long while before I settled back into my own mind, trying to keep from thinking about Bella. I knew it was a useless endeavor but I was trying to keep the pain from taking me over if at all possible.

And all at once I was consumed with this need, a disembodied compulsion to see her. I knew it would rip me apart. It had been almost a day since I had left the room I had not strayed from during her change. I had not wanted to see her since then, knowing how it would destroy me. Seeing her body, lifeless, dead, cold and unmoving would make what was left of me collapse in on itself. Despite this, I suddenly needed to see her. If it was only to see her perfection and know for sure that she was real, that such extraordinary beauty and splendor did exist, I had to go.

Standing was a challenge. Rising to my feet, bringing such strain to my body was like asking a human to fight off a vampire. It was impossible. It could never happen. But I managed. The first step toward the stairs caused a tearing ache through the whole of my body, starting in the foot that hit the floor and echoing up my leg all the way to my head, where it pounded and throbbed. The second step was not quite as hard, the pain being dulled by familiarity at that point.

The stairs posed a challenge of a completely different kind. It would be so easy not to take the steps up them. It would be so much easier to bypass the hurt and refuse to walk up the stairs that loomed before me. I did though, I pulled myself upward, toward her body, toward the place I died again. Whatever that was in me that had survived the Spanish influenza, that had survived the change, that had survived the time in my life when I murdered without mercy, had died with Bella. She was gone and so was I. All that remained was the physical. And that could be easily taken care of by the very unwelcome guests that had simply refused to leave.

The top of the steps brought another small victory, more pain, and a fear I had not expected. Only Bella could inspire such terror in me, and even in death she was succeeding in places so many others had failed.

I stood outside the door to Alice's room for a very long time. No one had gone in there since they found out of Bella's fate. It was not their place and they knew so. It seemed I could not force myself to go in, either. I imagined her as she would have wanted to be remembered—alive, vivacious, beautiful. I saw her radiant smile in my mind. I could almost smile at that memory, almost bring that happy expression to my face. But it wouldn't quite make it. The knowledge I would never see that again made it stop.

I placed my hand on the door handle and took a deep, unnecessary breath. I closed my eyes before I opened the door, in case I changed my mind at the last minute and could not stand to see her. Several moments passed before I could stand to open them.

When I eventually did, I almost wished I hadn't. There she lay, pale and still on Alice's bed. She had not moved at all—not that I had expected her to, even if I had prayed for it with all I had in me.

"Oh my love," I whispered. Even though I knew she could not hear me, I knew that she could not react to what I was saying; it didn't stop me from speaking to her. The next steps I took were, by far, the hardest things I had ever done in the entirety of my existence. The days of pain during the change, dealing with my guilt and remorse—nothing compared to how difficult it was for me to cross the room to the body of my dead love.

I knelt beside her and watched her still form as though I thought she would rise or open her eyes and greet me. I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything. I only craved for her pretty eyes to open, her mouth to form words again. I brushed my fingers across her inert face, touching her smooth skin again. It was like torture. Where that sensation would usually have brought pleasure, would have brought rapture beyond imagining, it was now like being burned. Her skin was as cool as mine and silken, but the fact that she was dead—truly gone—made it torment.

"I love you."

I wanted those words to wake her. I wanted this to be a fairy tale where my love, my kiss perhaps, would wake her from a sleep she was doomed to until her true love arrived. But I was no prince and she would not wake from death.

Despite the sickened retch that flashed through me, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers, a final gossamer kiss to say goodbye. I was almost disappointed when she didn't respond, didn't kiss me in return. I had known she wouldn't.

"'For never was there a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo,'" quoted Aro from behind me. Instantly, I felt anger burn under my skin, but restrained it only for the sake of not defiling the place where my Bella had spent her last days.

"Were you hoping that some poison would be left yet upon those lovely lips to bring you to the same end as your love?" he asked slowly. I felt a growl build in my chest but kept it from the air. He would not goad me into a display of anger. I refused to respond, not even turning to face him as he took steps closer to me. I focused only on Bella and her perfection.

"I found it strange, Edward, that she survived so long only to expire on the last day of her change. Quite strange...strange enough, in fact, that I have to tell you that never before have I seen someone last so long only to die so soon before completion. But from the reckonings of your family members she was quite the woman in her human life. It only stands to reason she would prove to be an enigma now."

This time, I _did_ turn and meet his eyes, a vibrant scarlet that inspired fear in most. To me it only elicited annoyance. He smiled briefly before returning to a somber expression. In the presence of Bella, the dead woman I had come to love more fiercely than it was possible to love another being on this planet, smiles were completely out of place and utterly unwelcome.

"Why are you here, Aro?" I asked, my voice flat and empty.

"I wanted to see how you are holding up," he replied. The lie was evident in his thoughts, and yet I could not care. It was not his literal presence in this room that troubled me.

"That is not what I mean. Why have you not left? Clearly, your desire was to rid this city of the crisis situation in which you found it, and you have done so. You became aware of Bella's existence and needed to be rid of her, which through whatever means, you have also done. There is nothing left for you here. Bella is dead, the exposure threat has been neutralized, and you do nothing but prolong and intensify the tension of my household. So I ask again, why are you here?"

For a moment, he did not know how to respond. He was not used to someone other than his brothers being so frank with him, and even then, it was not with the same level of casual anger and irritation that he experienced from me. When he returned from the internal musing that caused him to almost laugh with annoyance at my perceived insolence, he smiled again.

"Your father is a friend of mine and has been for many years. I did not think it a criminal act to visit with him. Or are the laws different here?" he said, a joking lilt in his voice. My body tensed with a sudden urge to wipe that grin from his face. I wanted nothing more than to hurt him, make him understand the physical pain I was in and that his presence was only making it that much worse. But I knew it would be unwise to do such a thing until I was ready and sure I wanted to die.

"The laws, you will find, are not much different than yours. It is not the law, however, that dictates how pleasing or unpleasing your collective presence is," I replied, my tone biting into the air. I felt horrible desecrating this room with such harshness, yet I could not bring myself to be kind.

"And what exactly is it that dictates such things?" he asked, still sounding amused. I was about to answer when Marcus made himself known in the doorway. He looked over at Aro, then turned his burgundy eyes on me with something like sympathy and pity.

"Aro, I wish to speak to Edward alone," he said simply. It was not a request for permission or for his absence. He was telling him to get out. I felt a sudden liking for Marcus, but it was paired with a sense of wariness. Aro smiled once more before casting a look at Bella that made me shake with possessive rage before leaving Marcus and I, closing the door behind him.

"How can I help you, Marcus?" I asked, slightly sarcastic but attempting to be genuine. I had to turn completely from Bella to remain sane during conversation and manage not to scream at the pain and injustice that seemed to hang here.

"I apologize for the disregard my brother has shown you during this ordeal. He has become quite…removed from the realm of feeling anything at all, other than the things that serve him. However, being so connected to the most extreme of human emotions it has become…more difficult to remove _myself_ so—though I assure you I have tried. Your tie to her was very strong, that I could feel, and can still feel. Though I do not give much merit to sensitivity, I find my brother's lack of sympathy distasteful.

"I know what your talent is, and am sure you have found through my thoughts what I think of love. It is a precious thing; a gift that so many waste and so few appreciate. It always saddens me when two who love so purely and completely are denied happiness when so many are given too much undeservingly. You and Bella had a chance to be of the happiest people I have seen, devoted to each other in ways others cannot even dream of. I could feel that as well, you see. It is not only the intensity of a relationship I can sense, but also the possibilities of it. I am not so talented as your Alice as to have a vision of the future, but the depth of people's connection often denotes the future of their relationship."

I looked at Marcus for a time, feeling the presence of Bella behind me, knowing that the ache would strike at me again, and for the moment it was not the loss of her, of her resplendence and beauty that pained me, but it was that I could tell he was being truthful. He had indeed felt the sort of connection between us and felt that it was difficult to rival. The future would have held nothing but happiness for us.

And now that was gone.

"Why do you tell me these things, Marcus?" I asked slowly, forming words with difficulty. Though it gave me a sort of pleasure to know we truly loved each other, that her admission was not a last minute false confession before what she thought was certain death, it also sickened me to hear that our love was so apparent it was almost tangible to Marcus.

"I wanted you to know that the love you had for one another was absolute. It was not an illusion, but a reality. You are well within your rights to be saddened by this loss."

Saddened was a _bit_ of an understatement. Jasper had to leave the house because my depression was so severe it was causing him physical pain. Alice had come and gone between us in that time if only to make sure that neither of us was lacking in support. Jasper was significantly better once he was away from me—at least that was what Alice relayed to me—but the memory of it was painful enough that he still needed her. She felt guilty over leaving me, guilty that I was here and in as much pain as Jasper had been in, but unable to escape it as he was, and that she would not be here to help.

Nonetheless, what help she could have provided was not conceivable. The only way I would feel better was if Bella came back, and that was not going to happen.

"Of all of us, my brothers and I and all those we associate with, I am the only one who remains even in mild contact with humanity. That is not to say that I cherish said humanity or find that it aids me in any way, but as I said, being so tied to emotion, love most of all, makes me susceptible to such inescapable compassion. I wish my brother's selfish curiosity had not cost you your mate, but we had no way of knowing her death would be imminent."

"No, you could not. But that does not excuse the selfishness of the actions," I replied. With that I looked back at Bella, perfect and still and most of all still dead.

"I…I am sorry, Edward," he said. His voice was slow and quiet. In his mind I could tell that this was the first time he had made any sort of apology, let alone a sincere one, in a very long time, and even the careful disdain with which he spoke the words made that evident. He felt it was his place to apologize even though it was not directly his fault. He knew Aro would never admit he was wrong in any way, even after causing destruction.

"I accept your apology, though it means nothing. It does not bring her back, or take away the days of pain she suffered through before dying beside me. She did not deserve any of this, and yet she is dead now because of a selfish, pompous ancient's curiosity," I spat, realizing only afterward that my speech had been unnecessarily bitter and rude, and immediately counteracted my rough acidity, "I apologize, Marcus. I am not myself."

He nodded and the looked past me, at the prone form of my lover lying on the bed. He moved toward us both and without asking reached a pale, frail looking hand to touch her bare arm. I knew that had it been someone else, almost anyone else in fact, it would have enraged me that he presumed to touch her. But he did it with such careful reverence, such respect, honor, and almost sadness, that it seemed proper for him to touch her in such a way.

"So beautiful and so strong. She would have been quite the woman."

"She already was."

He nodded and then turned back to me with a flat expression.

He said nothing and then left the room.

His thoughts revealed how touched he was seeing her, how moved he was by coming in contact with her skin. She was a beauty beyond compare, and yet it was something beyond that which caused him to venerate her so. It was sad to him that it had to be posthumously that he found her so wonderful. He would have liked to know her. At that thought, I turned back to Bella.

"I would have loved you endlessly. There would have been nothing I would not have done for you, nothing I would not have given you. The world would have been yours if only you had asked."

She said nothing.

I stayed with her for a long time. Almost another full day staring only at her, watching her lie still and wishing she would only move. It was after hours upon hours of this fruitless hoping that I rose. My legs seemed to shake as I stood. With one last lingering look, I turned from her, making my way to the door once more, leaving behind the only person I could ever love.

At first there had been so much silence, and then talking, endless and useless to the point of irritation. And then silence once more; the sound of death was indeed silence. I had come to trust silence. With quiet there could be no lies, no words to hurt another, no plots or plans that would rip a person's world apart. Silence was honest at least, if nothing else.

Over the past day I had come to enjoy the silence. If I could not have her voice, could not hear her sweet words, I did not want anything else.

And then a sound broke the only thing I trusted, the only faithful thing left in the world.

A breath, sharp and deep and sudden from behind me. I spun and saw the shocked expression as my love was frozen momentarily, and then screamed, her voice filling the stillness with the only thing I had ever longed to hear. Even her scream brought euphoria to me, pervading every cell in me that had been dying in her absence. When her scream faded she was panting hard, her face scared and unaware of her surroundings. She sat up suddenly, shooting up as though pulled by some invisible force. Without even realizing it, I crossed the room to her once more, falling to my knees by her bedside.

"Bella," I said, her name like a prayer. She looked at me and her face went blank.

"What happened to me?"


	16. Life and Death and Everything In Between

alright, so I know Ive been incredibly remiss with my updates for this story. but here is the next chapter! YAY!

thanks to my beta, who always supports my creative endeavors, even when my first try sucks, haha :)

* * *

I wanted to answer her. I wanted to tell her what had happened, what had occurred in her body to make her so different. But I couldn't speak. There were no words in any language I had ever learned—and I knew several—that could accurately describe what was happening to me. There had been a feeling of emptiness, as though I was hollow with her death. As if I had died with her and was only a shell, walking about until I could find a way to die. She had taken me with her when she left. And now there she was, sitting up in front of me. There was a tidal wave of emotion that followed her return, and I could not quite understand it all.

I stared at her in reverence. She was so much more than a woman should be. Tall but shapely, slim yet curvaceous. The words svelte and voluptuous came to mind and somehow did not seem to be enough. Her chestnut hair hung about her pale face in a halo, drawing attention to her lovely burgundy eyes. She was unfairly beautiful. No one in the world could compare to her charm. She had been exquisite as a human, so beyond compare and so much more than words. But now…not even a _thought_ illustrated her. The epitome of magnificence, the very definition of inspiration. She was the woman poets wrote about, the muse painters thought of when they were most roused by artistic passion, the unnamed beauty every composer scribed music for. She was the very personification of love.

I gathered her in my arms, wrapping her in a tight embrace, no longer afraid to hold her as tightly as I could possibly manage. She seemed strangely unaware of what was happening for a long moment before slowly and unsurely returning the hug. After a moment of strangeness she pulled me tighter against her. She started to shake.

"Edward…what happened?" she asked again slowly. Her voice was quivering as she clung to me. As much as it pained me I pulled myself from her slightly if only to look in her face and see her beautiful eyes looking back at me.

"My beautiful Bella, I am so sorry. I will live forever and never find the words to tell you how horrible I feel about this. You didn't deserve this. Nothing about this was just or warranted."

She paused and looked into my eyes for a long moment.

"I died. I felt it…every inch of me. And you…you were there, but there was nothing…and I _died_. I knew I was gone. And now…"

She seemed to be panicking, on the edge of hysteria. I wanted to calm her, to soothe her nerves, but I wasn't sure there was anything I could do for her. It was like watching her change; I could not help her beyond my useless words.

"You are like me now. You are a vampire, like my family and I, like the Volturi and their guard. My love, I would never have chosen this for you or forced it upon you. You had no choice in this and for that I apologize. Please forgive me," I begged.

"It isn't your fault. You did everything you could," she said, and her voice came down from its hysterical edge. There was still panic in it, still a sense of disbelief, but it didn't seem like she was going to break down and shake uncontrollably.

I could vaguely remember the moments after waking from the change. At first it was only relief at finally escaping the pain. The moments after were filled with a sort of horrified wonder. I remembered the sensory overload, the different way things looked, smelled, sounded like and how overwhelmed I was. I had known I was dying before I was changed, known the Spanish Influenza was taking my body every moment I lay breathing. When I went under the change I was scared; I was sure that I was finally dying. And then when I had woken I could not believe I had lived through the agony. And then the horror set in when Carlisle told me what I was. I didn't know whether to cry or laugh at that moment, not knowing that crying would be completely impossible at that point.

"What do you remember?" I asked slowly. She blinked a few times and a strange expression crossed her face, a cross between angry and confused, as though she had not understood what I asked and became frustrated by her lack of ability to respond.

"I don't…I _can't_."

I wanted to ask her why not, but I realized now was not the right time to interrogate her about her memories. She was trying to adjust to this change, the newness of her current condition. It would not be fair to add more complexity to her current confusion.

The shaking had not stopped in the short conversation we had. She had continued to tremble as she denied my questions but now that she was sitting upright away from me I could see it fully. Her whole body was quaking slightly. It looked like she was either petrified of something or in an immense amount of pain.

"What is wrong, my love?" I asked quietly. There was a long silence, flat and empty.

"Pain," she said finally.

"Excuse me?" I asked. I had not the slightest clue about what she was speaking.

"I remember pain. So much pain, both physical and…it seemed like my soul was ripping into pieces. There is so much I don't remember, so much of my life that I have forgotten already. I know some things—my name, how old I am. I have a few memories, but even those are hazy."

Her eyes were far away then, as though she was trying to call upon something she did not quite remember. I was certain that was what she was doing. Memories as a newborn were stronger than any other time, and yet their strength only made them more frustrating. When a memory was gone, or so faded it was indiscernible, it was not worth the effort to try and sort through them. But as a newborn, some memories were hazy but not totally gone. It was infuriating to know that there were things you _should_ remember, that were so close to the surface of your mind and yet you could not see them clearly. I was about to ask her what she remembered when she began to tell me.

"It's the strangest thing, the little memories I have managed to keep. One of them is my sixteenth birthday party. I broke my arm while I was going out to greet a guest. We had to cancel the whole thing so I could go to the emergency room. Others are a little less…innocuous."

"Such as?"

She met my eyes for the first time since she began speaking. Her expression was extremely pained. It resembled the hurt expression she had managed as a human, and yet it was multiplied and so her pain seemed to be multiplied as well.

"Of all the things to remember, Edward, why do I remember her screams? Why do I remember the look on his face while he died? Why do I remember running and crying and feeling so physically weak but so sickened I couldn't bear to stop? I don't remember meeting you. I know we met, I know we fell in love. I mildly remember you leaving me flowers and something about you jumping through my window. I remember your face when you saved me from that mugger, the last night we spent together before all of this…but I don't remember the first moment I laid eyes on you. If I could have any memory at all I think I would like to have that one. But I can't recall it.

"But I do remember killing. I remember taking a life. I remember the guilt that followed me as I ran away from that poor girl as she called out for help. It seems so _clear_ to me, so vivid. And I…I don't understand this."

I didn't know what I should do. How could I ask her if it was all right to comfort her, to hold her and kiss her pain away? Because I was unsure of how to ask, but convinced it was what she needed from me, I simply reached out my arms and grabbed on to her, pulling her close. She didn't fight me. She simply sat there with me, silent but leaning against my chest for a long while. Time continued to pass and yet it seemed for us to stand completely still.

"My sweet Bella, nothing is going to make sense for a long time. Becoming a vampire isn't simply the physical transformation. You lose your memories, your past, your way of life. There is nothing easy about changing. You can't expect to understand this life any time soon. Just know that I will be here to help you with anything you need, as will the rest of the family."

She sighed and thanked me quietly, her cheek still resting against my chest. She said nothing else for a long while and neither did I. I wasn't sure what else I could say to her. I had feared that she would remember certain things that would be traumatic. I didn't want her to remember killing. I didn't want her to think of herself as a murderer. And yet for all the hopes I had for her it did not seem to matter. She would carry that guilt with her for eternity. I could only hope now that those memories would fade with time.

"Edward?" she asked quietly.

"Hm?"

"Do you still love me? _Can_ you still love me like this?"

Immediately I withdrew from her, untangling myself from the embrace we had maintained for quite some time. I looked straight into scarlet eyes, focusing on the face of the most glorious woman on the earth.

"Never doubt that. You could kill thousands, bring the entire world to its knees, create Hell on earth and never would I stop loving you. There is no force on heaven or earth or anywhere else for that matter that could do that."

I marveled at the fact that she could ask me such a thing. A more ludicrous question had never been voiced.

"Promise me," she said quietly.

"I promise you, Isabella, eternity will come and go, the world could end for all I care. I will love you no matter what."

She smiled a little. Perhaps it was the fervor and histrionics with which I claimed such things, but I felt as though they were necessary. If I was to remove all doubt on her part I needed to make sure I was as clear and honest as possible. There was nothing more honest than what I had told her.

"How did this even happen?" she asked, staring down at her own hands as though they did not belong to her. I explained what had transpired before her change and during it, leaving out how afraid I had been of her death and how useless I had been in that time between the end of her change and when she awoke. She took each of my words quietly, not questioning me as I told the tale she had requested. I noticed the way she avoided looking in my eyes as I spoke as much as I wished to ignore it. It was because of this that I lifted her face to look into mine, tilting her chin with my hand.

Between being struck again with her unworldly beauty and the far off look in her eyes that seemed not to have left since it appeared there some time ago, I was a bit perplexed. But I knew that this wasn't going to be easy. She could not be expected to adjust to this newness very quickly. If I recalled correctly it took me weeks to figure myself out after being changed. But she had a family, someone who would love her eternally. She had nothing to fear when it came to being alone. She had siblings that cared for her, a reasonable facsimile of parents and she of course had me. I would never leave her, not for the rest of my life.

"So I'm a vampire because Aro wanted me turned," she said slowly.

I nodded.

"He sees potential in you, which in all honesty I can understand. You're quite the interesting puzzle—immunity to our talents and what I am sure is so much more—none of us can speculate as to what your capabilities will be as a vampire. He gave us the choice of killing you, as I told you, but because I wouldn't, he changed you. I couldn't stop him. Believe me when I tell you I tried. I would never have let him change you if I had understood what was happening and could have done something about it."

"Why?" she asked, "why would you have stopped him? Is there some reason you don't want me to be a vampire?"

"Several. Bella, you don't seem to understand. Being like me isn't some blessing. This is eternity. This is who you will be, _forever_. You will kill to sustain yourself, be tempted by the blood of human beings—creatures with a soul. You will never age and never die, which means you can never settle anywhere. You will need to move around constantly to keep suspicion off yourself and the rest of the family. You cannot have children, cannot ever speak to anyone from your old life. Your family and friends are dead to you now. Every human is. I broke the rules, the _first_ rule about my existence by ever becoming involved with you in the first place. You cannot do as I have done and befriend anyone outside other vampires. It is not necessary that you stay in keeping with our feeding habits or that you even stay with us as part of the family.

"Bella, because I loved you, because I _needed_ you so unnaturally, I have damned you to a world of pretense. You cannot walk about in the sun or you will expose yourself. You cannot even be around humans for the next few years because you will not be able to resist the temptation of their blood. You will watch your family and friends die away and know there is nothing you can do as you live on forever and stay damned, bound for whatever life waits for us when this eventually ends. It is not the life I would have chosen for you. I would have wanted you to have children, to get married, to love a human and be loved in return, to live fiercely for all the years you were given and be granted entrance to whatever afterlife you so chose, as any angel rightfully should. Instead you have this, you have life as a vampire, and nothing more. You are not awarded the choices, neither were you given one to begin with. Carlisle only ever changed us because we were going to die. You were changed because of curiosity. I know not what you will do, what you will be capable of. I only know that I love you and I am sorry. If this was the life you wanted I would have given it to you, but I find it unfair that you were forced into this situation that you have no way to fix."

I had been trying to tone down my dramatics in order to keep things simple for her while she was still adjusting. But I found once I had begun to speak of the things she would not have, the life she had missed, the things I wished she could have gotten, I could not stop. She should have been given so much more. I had once believed that everything happened for a reason. I was changed so I could eventually meet Bella and fall in love with her and know what it was to care for someone so completely. Whether our love affair ended when she died and I followed her as quickly as possible or she left me because she did not want me any longer I did not know, but I knew that my life had brought me to this place for a reason, and that reason was Bella. I had learned through her what strength was, what sacrifice was, obsession, passion, love, protection, friendship, and courage. She re-taught me everything important, anything I could have wanted to know.

But now I was not so sure that there was some grand plan, at least not for a thing like me. How could a plan involve her death, days of mind-blowing pain, and then a life that would never be fully lived because she was not given the opportunity? She had been taken from her own story far too soon, before she was allowed to all the things she deserved to do. Because of me, because of the story I was living she had been ripped from her own fate and thrown into mine, destined to become the most important part of my life.

It wasn't fair that in becoming that she was forced to die and become another being altogether.

A look of relief crossed her face and I took a moment to realize what must have been crossing her mind. She must have assumed that I didn't want her. Because I could not read her thoughts and did not know for sure I was afraid to ask, but I swallowed my fear and remembered that fortune rewards the bold.

"It was your well being, your life, your soul, your heart and mind I feared for. It was only because I wanted the best for your life I was reluctant to change you. It had nothing to do with not loving you or wanting you with me."

She looked at me then, locking her eyes with mine and something was communicated. Even though I could not read her thoughts still I was able to pick something up from the gaze she maintained. I didn't know if she meant to tell me this but it was passed to me nonetheless.

She was scared. My poor little Bella was terrified of what was happening to her. She felt so out of place, as though even as a vampire she and I were not on a level playing field. I wished I could tell her that we never would be—she would forever be better than me.

I didn't know how to comfort her. I didn't know how to assuage her fears, to make her feel safer with me. All the words in the world could be uttered between she and I and I wasn't sure that would ever do the trick. I reached out and held my hand to her perfect face and tried to make her understand that there was nothing to be afraid of. I would keep her safe no matter what happened now.

She sighed.

"I think my family would like to see you," I said slowly. She nodded and we rose from the floor in unison. She took my hand in hers, initiating contact for the first time. It heartened me to see that she still wanted to touch me at all. I opened the door to Alice's room, leading her in the direction of my family, to where I could hear their thoughts. They were ecstatic and a little confused. She was dead. She had not survived the change. But they had heard her voice, her scream first and then her careful words. It was hard to contain both the happiness and bewilderment in their minds. When they saw her I was sure they would not be able to contain themselves.

I didn't need to look over to Bella to know she was more scared and nervous than she had been before. It was astounding how in tune I was with her. I could feel the tension in her simply in the way she carried herself beside me. We made it to the stairs and descended them at the same pace, leisurely in the most artificial of ways. She was growing more and more anxious with each step and because of that so was I. How would she be received? What would my family say? And what of the Volturi?

I squeezed her hand gently, trying to reassure her as best I could. She glanced at me and I at her. There was a thin smile upon those ruby lips. She was taking some sort of solace in my attempts.

We made our way to the living room, the place I could hear all the thoughts of my family and our guests, the place I could feel their collective presence. We passed through the doorway, and everything stopped.

Never before Bella had I been met with silence when I listened to someone's mind. And yet when we set foot through the threshold I found such profound stillness. I was equally perplexed and delighted with the quiet in my own mind. While all eyes lingered upon my Bella, so lovely and pale and deceptively weak, they thought nothing.

And then suddenly I was bombarded with thoughts, overwhelmed with words and images in everyone's minds. It was unbelievable. They had known she was not dead, they had heard her scream, her voice sounding upstairs. But to see her, to know that she had risen from apparent death to be this creature that stood before them was something completely different.

"Why lovely Bella, it appears you are not lost to us after all," Aro said quietly, his eyes fixed on her intently. She nodded with grace. I longed to hear her voice again, to listen to the melody that was her words, but I refrained from asking. She would speak soon enough.

Alice on the other hand did not take a moment to pause. She crossed the room with speed and enveloped Bella in a hug. Bella looked a bit shocked but then reciprocated, wrapping her arms around Alice as well.

"Don't you EVER scare me like that again!" Alice commanded. Bella laughed and promised she wouldn't. After Alice had finished squeezing whatever life might have been left inside her, Esme took her turn and then Emmett, who lifted her clean off the floor. She smiled so beautifully as the exchanges of affection went on. It made me glad to see her smile. She exchanged glances with Japer and Rose, who seemed if not pleased that she was a vampire, at least pleased that she was not dead, and then Carlisle, who gave her a knowing look and said nothing. In his mind he was not so silent however.

He was worried that now that she had indeed changed, there would be problems with the Volturi. Would they leave us easily if she chose not to stay with them, even though it was they who made her? But even as he worried, he didn't let that overshadow his happiness not only for Bella, but also for me. I had seen in his eyes the pity and sadness he felt for me, the way he knew there was a hole in me so great and deep it could never heal. And now that I had my love back, the only woman that ever mattered to me in this way, he could see I was no longer missing anything.

But the moment, the relief and happiness was spoiled by the unwanted interruption of Aro.

"No hug for me, dearest Bella?" he asked, his voice sickeningly sweet and insultingly sarcastic. It dripped with something so falsely pleasant is almost made me sick. I was unsure of how Bella would answer. I wanted to reach out to her and pull her back to where I could touch her and know she was safe. But I could only watch her respond.

Her face had fallen at first, unsure of what to say to his sudden question. But then a smile graced her face once more; so sly and sweet it matched the tone in Aro's voice with perfection. But instead of hugging him she merely reached out her hand. He took it with ease and laid a gossamer kiss upon her skin. His eyes never left hers through the entire exchange.

There was such stillness and silence in those moments. It seemed as though a fight was likely to erupt as that kiss was being placed upon her hand. But the gesture I realized was one of mutual respect. Bella because she knew that Aro was a force she needed to respect. Aro because she was an anomaly, a puzzlement he wanted to solve and without her cooperation, he never would. It was a pact between the two of them.

We all knew that there would be decisions made soon, futures determined by the choices being made in the near future. It frightened me to no end that so soon there would be things that would change our lives, for the better or worse I could not tell yet. It was understood among all those who stood in that room that things would be changing very soon.

When Aro released my Bella she returned to me and instantly I pulled her to me, a place where we were touching and I could be sure she was there.

"This is simply fascinating!" exclaimed Aro. "You died, or at least appeared to. And then you come back to us, lovely as the heavens. My dear if you were any more interesting I am not sure this earth could contain you."

Bella smiled and said nothing.

"Fascinating," he repeated.

And in his mind he continued, because he knew I could hear him or perhaps in spite of it.

_And it is sure to get more fascinating very soon._


	17. End Of The World Party

**Im a terrible, terrible person for not updating. I know. BUT Im hoping you will forgive me.**

**also, thank you SO SO SO much to my BETA because she is spectacular and makes my writing like, 4 million times better than normal.**

The days passed in tension, much like the time during Bella's transformation

1The days passed in tension, much like the time during Bella's transformation. Everyone was on edge, unsure of what to do with themselves as we waited for _something_ to happen. It wasn't as though there wasn't enough space for the Volturi and my family in our house, but I couldn't be alone with my Bella or my family the way I yearned to.

Bella hunted every few hours initially. She needed to satisfy the burning in her throat with such urgency and so often in those first few days, but as they passed she was able to feed once a day and be sated with it. I was worried that if she had to feed that frequently for very long she would deplete the deer population nearby. However, her thirst soon dulled, certainly not gone, but diminished. She seemed to take to her new form with ease, though she still was at the mercy of her bloodlust, which as a newborn, were frequent.

Between hunting, trying to maintain peace with the Volturi (who still refused to leave), and getting along with my family, Bella and I had not been alone since she woke up. It was driving me mad. Of course there were the occasional pangs of want for her when she would smile a certain way, or kiss me a moment longer than I expected her to, but really, I just wanted to see her, spend time with her, to love her exclusively for just a little while. The tension was wearing on me; everyone's thoughts were exceedingly potent and clear no matter how I tried to shut them out, and the constant reminder was in Jasper's mind as he tried his best to quell the strain and make everyone relax, even if for the briefest moment.

What we were all truly waiting for was the manifestation of Bella's gift. I continuously reminded Aro and the others that it was possible she would not have one - that she had simply been an extraordinary human and her strange immunity had been lost in translation. Aro remained adamant. He repeated to me whenever I suggested this that not one human had _ever_ been able to resist his talent or Jane's, and there was merely no way that a mortal creature as magnificent as Bella would be ordinary as a vampire. It frightened me especially because I had a sinking feeling he was right.

And so he proved to be a little over two weeks after Bella awoke from her strange hibernation.

Emmett, Alice, Bella and I were hunting for small game close to home. We hadn't gotten the chance to go far in the last few weeks, despite the fact that I knew the bigger animals would make it easier for Bella to feel satisfied. Carlisle had warned us to stay close by in case we were needed at a moment's notice, so close by it was. We had already eaten and were circling around to go back to the house, running the long way, skirting slightly closer to town.

We were, of course, far enough from Forks itself that Bella would not get the scent of human blood anywhere near and feel enticed. We were miles away, and I had no fear of temptation as we ran, racing and jumping and playing, getting to feel free for the first time since the Volturi had arrived and made our lives into the shadowed, anxious existence they currently were.

Just as I leapt over a fallen tree and was about to catch Bella and pull her right off of her feet for a kiss, I fell to my knees.

The _voices_.

There were so many in my head at a time that I thought it was going to implode. So many thoughts, ideas, images, and words were exploding and surging through my mind, being pushed into it with such enormous force. I had never felt anything like this - the not abnormal, omnipresent pressure of hundreds, even thousands of voices in my head was suddenly deafeningly loud, and I was incapable of drowning any of them out. I couldn't stand it. I felt like I was simply going to die, or my head was going to explode from the pressure of so many painfully loud thoughts all at once.

I groaned in pain and I could feel the close-by pressure of more thoughts, those of Emmett and Alice as they approached me. I had to shut my eyes; having both physical vision in addition to seeing the things that were being forced through my mind at the same time would have overloaded my senses completely.

"Edward?" I heard Bella's melodic voice cut through the rest of the sound in my ears and mind. I couldn't answer her. I couldn't do anything. I was crippled by the influx of thoughts. I tried my hardest to tune them out - I had gotten rather good at doing so for the benefit of my family over the last few decades - but there were plainly just too many. If I pushed away a single voice, another five replaced it. It was almost as horribly painful as having Jane set her power upon me.

I briefly registered the sensation of being lifted and carried. Moments passed in the unbearable agony of my mind being overloaded. And then it began to ease, to slowly peter out. It finally, mercifully stopped and the only voices I heard in my head were Emmett and Alice, and my family and the Volturi at the house, which we were quickly nearing. Compared to what I had just experienced, it was a relief to only have a dozen, quiet voices in my head instead of thousands of riotously loud ones.

My eyes opened cautiously and I saw it was Bella that had lifted me and was carrying me in her arms. She stopped moving as soon as I looked at her.

"Edward?" she asked softly. Her voice was tiny, frightened.

"I'm okay, Bella. You can put me down."

She grinned sheepishly and then set me on my feet once more, muttering something about just wanting to get me to Carlisle. I smiled at her and thanked her.

"What happened to you?" Alice asked. Her mind was frantic, confused, and worried.

"We were running," I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around something so blisteringly uncomfortable that was still so fresh, "And suddenly…I could hear _everything_, so clearly. All the voices from town were in my head. Everyone. It was just too much, too loud." I shook my head in confusion, unaware of what was really going on. "It hurt to have so many thoughts and ideas in my head all at once. I've never felt anything like it. It overloaded me. But then when we got far enough away…I can't hear them now, just you two, and everyone back at the house."

"I didn't think you could do that," Bella interjected.

"I _can't_. That's what I don't understand."

I pondered what had just happened while we cautiously proceeded back to the house. Emmett made a point to tell everyone what had just happened as soon as we got there. Everyone was perplexed. Even Aro, who was proud of how very much he knew about our species, was dumbfounded. He had never heard of someone's gift progressing after it initially developed. You could work with your gift early on, try to stretch it, find its limits, but once you knew where they were, it simply wouldn't expand just because you wanted it to. I had tested the boundaries of my own abilities many times over the years, and they had never resulted in such overwhelming power.

Bella quickly and thankfully changed the subject as she could see that the continued conversation about my gift was starting to make me uncomfortable. I already didn't like the way Aro thought of me, like I was an acquisition, let alone if by some miracle my abilities had just expanded into something wholly more intimidating.

Aro, for his part, was _always_ willing to pay attention to Bella when she wished it, and sometimes even when she didn't. He was fascinated by her and she could play on it when it was necessary. He would listen to her talk about the fine arts of origami or doing her laundry for hours if she wished it. She used her knowledge of his obsession with her at that time to divert his attention from me. I reminded myself to thank her later for it.

As she started asking questions about Volterra and what they did there and how they came to be—a subject Aro always loved to discuss, especially if it was Bella who was eager to learn—I snuck off quietly to talk to Carlisle. He hadn't been present when Emmett announced what had happened. He was in his study, looking through some old book of his, for a reason I did not delve into his thoughts to discover.

"Carlisle," I said quietly, shutting the door to his study behind me quickly. He looked up at me, and noting the distress on my face, closed his book and motioned for me to sit down.

"Edward?"

I explained to him what had happened and he listened with patience as he always did. My father was silent after I was done talking. He seemed to be pondering several different angles, considering all of the elements and factors of the situation, developing a theory as he usually did for a problem that any one of us encountered.

_Have you considered it might be Bella?_ He inquired through the medium of his thoughts, in case anyone was eavesdropping downstairs. I cocked my head at him, flummoxed.

_We have been waiting for her gift to manifest_, he began cautiously, and I could simultaneously hear the brilliant gears turning in his head, _I know we all prayed, for her safety, that she would not have one, if only to keep her from seeming any more interesting to the Volturi. But perhaps her gift is actually the ability to enhance the talents of those around her._ I cringed immediately at the notion of Bella being bestowed such a headily powerful talent, but Carlisle continued. _It would make sense for the control she had over her own mind to bloom into the manipulation of other's. The only way to be sure would be for you to go back alone to the place where you heard the voices and see if you have a similar experience. I pray that this is the case, and that Bella's own mind will not be working against her._

"I will do that now," I responded. I could hear Bella and Aro downstairs, still talking like old friends, Bella flashing a flirtatious smile every once in awhile. I knew exactly what she was doing - distracting him so I could do whatever it was I had to do - but I didn't like that she showed that smile to anyone besides me, and I certainly didn't like the image of it in Aro's mind and the thoughts of his that followed it. I shook my head, pushing the words out of my mind, and then with a quick goodbye to my father, jumped gracefully from his window and landed on my feet, breaking into a run before even a second had passed.

I found the spot where I had fallen with greater ease than I expected. I stood yards away from it at first, afraid of what might happen if Carlisle's theory was wrong and I had really just gained an unwanted new strength in my ability. No one was here to pick me up and carry me away from this seemingly invisible barrier between madness and reality. But I braved it, because it was important to know, for both Bella and myself. I took the necessary steps and stood in the exact spot I had been when the mass of voices hit me.

Nothing.

There was no sudden tidal of thoughts, no throng of images and words filling my mind and making me fall over in the sheer force and weight of it. My heart sank with the weight of what this meant for us.

It _was_ Bella.

I sighed. I didn't know which outcome I had been truly hoping for - the one where Bella didn't actually have a gift and I was just going to have to learn to deal with the pain of too many minds in mine whenever I chose to leave the house, or the one where it was Bella, my delicate, wonderful, beautiful Bella that had somehow made my gift into something extraordinary and infinitely painful.

As I ran back to the house, I thought of the repercussions my new discovery would have, and knew the answer without a doubt. I realized that I would have preferred to be considered more gifted than I already was and to suffer a thousand lifetimes of that pain than for Bella to have a gift that might put in her in any form of danger, especially from the Volturi.

When I got back home Carlisle was downstairs with Bella, Alice, Emmett, Jasper, Aro, and his brothers and their ubiquitous entourage. I didn't know where Rose and Esme were, but I didn't blame them for not wanting to be around.

Aro was regaling Bella with some story about some ancient battle between him and some other incredibly powerful vampire. She was gallantly pretending to be immersed in it completely. Perhaps it was only because I knew her that I could see how _un_interested she was by his tale. She was bored out of her mind, actually, as far as her expression was communicating. She glanced at me in a cursory way, as though she was only looking at me and realizing I had come inside, so as to not make Aro think she was not as occupied as he clearly believed her to be. We locked eyes for only a fraction of an instant, but it was there, a smile just for me, _love_ just for me.

_Has your talent grown?_ Carlisle's thoughts drifted across my mind as he looked at Aro, as most of the people in the room were, pretending to listen to him. He glanced at me much in the way Bella had, for a second, maybe less. I shook my head minutely, as though I were glancing from one side of the room to another. Carlisle's expression darkened, and I felt mine doing much the same.

So her gift was the ability to strengthen the gifts of those around her. She certainly didn't do it on purpose. It must have been a latent matter, unintentional because she didn't even know she was capable of it. I knew undoubtedly that she wouldn't have hurt me on purpose. I needed to speak with her about it, needed to make her understand what she was capable of so she could try to control it.

If I couldn't get her alone, I didn't know how I was going to tell her without Aro finding out.

_He will figure out what has happened on his own. It may take him some time, but do not think he will remain ignorant for long. _

I glanced at Carlisle again and of course he was right. Aro _would_ figure it out. Even if certain events occurred where it would become painfully obvious, I was still unsure about just announcing it in front of everyone. I would rather keep this secret from Aro as long as possible, even if it meant it would only be a day or an hour that Bella knew and he did not.

And as fate is a fickle friend, it turned out that I did not, in fact, have to tread the dangerous water of trying to telling her myself before things got wildly out of control.

I should have noticed as we were sitting there the manner in which Jane's thoughts were becoming annoyed, both at the way Aro was favoring Bella so heavily and the way Felix was pestering her about it. He was only pointing out the obvious, telling her he thought it was so strange that Aro suddenly had this new favorite person when really she had been the most useful and his golden child for such a long time now. It was grating upon her nerves, reminding her of what she already knew, making her angry.

I would have told him to stop bothering her if I had been paying attention. But I was solely focused on my Bella, who was still acting, much better than she ever had as a human, and growing worried. I didn't know what she would be able to do with her abilities, how long it would take her to learn to control them and reign them in when it was necessary. It horrified me having so many different, potent talents in our midst while she was still unconsciously, unintentionally magnifying them.

While I was worrying about all of our safety, mostly hers of course, Jane snapped. I heard the thought a moment too late and should have realized things would not be the same after this.

"That's IT!" she shrieked and turned on Felix, focusing her mind on her gift. We all expected him to shrivel to the ground, cringe in pain, and then when she was done, rise with a heaving chest and a memory of being stabbed with a thousand hot knives.

But I stared in horror as what Bella did not even know she could do affected more than just my mind reading.

Felix did crumple, but it was not just to his knees or back on the floor. He hit the ground with a thud and his whole body went rigid, before beginning to seize and spasm uncontrollably. It wasn't what the image of him convulsing violently that was the most disturbing, even though it looked more painful than anything else I had ever seen. It was the sound he made, the _scream_ that filled the air, the most wretched, grating, agonized noise I'd ever had the displeasure of hearing. He wouldn't stop screaming, and Jane looked shocked but pleased.

The thoughts from his head filled mine. I didn't know the torture she inflicted could hurt me second hand, but there was something so potent about the suffering she was inducing that it sank into my own body. It was worse than knives, worse than branding irons, worse than the venomous change even. It was as though my body was being peeled apart layer by layer, scalded with boiling water, burned, seared, pummeled, stabbed, scorched. I felt my mouth open to produce a scream similar to Felix's. The pain was too much.

I saw Bella shriek in horror as she saw me collapse for the second time that day, and she screamed a single word.

"STOP!"

And then the pain was gone. I could feel Jane pushing with her mind, fascinated by what she had just done, but it was as though a switch had been flipped and her powers were instantaneously shut off. She couldn't hurt anyone. I could still hear thoughts around me, Felix's in sweet relief as he lay there on the ground still, nursing his aching body that hadn't quite recovered yet. But the pain, the mind melting pain was gone completely from my being.

Jane stared in horror at Bella.

"What did you _do_ to me?" she asked in anger, her expression fierce.

"Edward, are you okay?" she asked, ignoring Jane's question. She crossed the room to me and I felt her hands on mine, pulling me up and wrapping herself around me. It occurred to me that she was just as possessive of me as I was of her. I smiled faintly, trying to shake the memory of the torment from my mind.

"I'm fine," I assured her as I returned the embrace she held me in.

"How did you do that?" Felix asked, aghast, paler than normal, if that was possible, shaking. "You have turned that _gift_ of yours on me before and it was _never_ like that."

Before anyone responded, I heard the thought, the epiphany from Aro's mind, the one I had feared.

"Why, I think I know all the answers to these questions!" he exclaimed, the tenor of his thoughts simultaneously triumphant and fascinated. "I do believe that sweet Bella is the answer we are looking for." I hissed low, underneath my breath, as his mind already began formulating plans to _acquire_ her. "She was with our Edward when the voices in his head overwhelmed him, something he said had never before happened. And here she is now when our dearest Jane inflicted what looked like absolutely unbearable agony upon poor Felix and poor Edward, by mistake of course, more than she is normally capable of." He paused for dramatic effect, before proclaiming, "I think perhaps her gift is to bolster the existing talents of those around her."

"Then how did she shut it off? Does she have two talents?" Jane asked miserably, already seeing this was not going to play out well for her.

"Two?" Aro replied, momentarily hesitating, "No, I don't believe so. Rather two sides of the same coin. She can strengthen an ability, make it what seems exponentially more powerful than it was before, and also mute it, turn it off completely, if she so chooses. It is just a theory of course, but let us test it…"

He glanced at Jane and she at me. Jane smirked. I felt my muscles tighten in preparation for the hell that was about to engulf me.

"Do not even _think_ it," Bella warned. A frightening snarl ripped from her little body, and I couldn't help but feel momentarily, elatedly proud of her. And naturally, Jane _did_ think it. I immediately could feel her trying to get to me, trying to bring me down with what had just proved to be a phenomenal amount of pain, more than she had ever imposed before. Nothing happened. Again. When Jane finally stopped trying, I felt Bella slacken a little. It had apparently taken effort for her to shut Jane down like that, but when she grinned up at me I could tell it was not much.

"I am assuming that, since Edward evidently felt no pain, that you could not do anything, dearest?" Aro inquired. Jane muttered something about this being ridiculous and answered no. Aro grinned widely.

"Just to ease my curiosity, could you _try_ to fortify someone's gift? So far you have been doing it intermittently and without intention, but I am wondering what you could do if you really wanted to make someone's talent that much stronger," Aro mused. I had to admit, I shared his curiosity. She had just proven that with sheer force of will, she could turn off someone's talent completely. I had to question if what she had done to mine or Jane's gifts unconsciously was all she could do with that aspect of her ability, or if with concentration and control, she could make it even more powerful.

"Try with me," I suggested. Bella glanced up at me, concerned.

"I hurt you last time," she said quietly, now understanding that the crippling overload that I had experienced was because of her. I shook my head and smiled lightly, unafraid now that I was home, with her.

"It was an accident, love. You didn't even know you were doing it," I assured her. She still looked unhappy. "Go ahead. Help me," I said.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on thoughts that were further away from me than those in the house. I thought about the ones in the city, the ones that had overloaded me earlier. I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of Bella so close, similar to how she smelled as human, but distinctly different and almost better now that I wasn't tempted to kill her.

I heard nothing, but I also knew, even without opening my eyes again, that Bella was still hesitant. She didn't like that I had been in pain. It was, in fact, the reason she had found out the opposite end of her gift. But as afraid as she was of hurting me, I needed her to do this for me now.

"I will be okay, my love," I urged, "Go ahead."

"You're sure?" she asked quietly.

"Quite. I'll be fine as long as you're near me."

I could almost hear the smile in her voice as she sighed and then I felt her tense with concentration.

I was blown away again at the force and volume with which the thoughts entered my mind. I was unprepared for the magnitude of them, the sheer loudness and overwhelming strength. When I stiffened next to her, keeping myself upright only because Bella was holding on to me tightly, she stopped. I felt her slacken and so did I.

"Ouch," I said quietly, rubbing my temple gently.

"Sorry," she murmured, removing my hand from my face and replacing it with her lips, placing a healing kiss over my temple.

I turned my face to meet hers and met her lips to kiss her in earnest, to make sure she knew I did not blame her, that any pain was more than bearable and completely forgiven with her arms around me the way they were right then.

"So?" Aro asked, excited. He already knew the answer, but he only wanted to hear me say it.

"Quite the same as before, from an even further distance," I replied, not taking my eyes from Bella's angel face. Aro clapped his hands enthusiastically.

"Splendid," he cheered, "Just splendid."

I grimaced as the possibilities of this new information passed through his thoughts. I didn't want to know about his plans and ploys, his ideas for her future. He was thinking of her much the same way he had thought about me, as something to be obtained, a new toy, a plaything, an asset.

But if there was one thing I was sure of in that moment, it was that he most certainly could _not_ have her.

The dynamic in the house changed after that day. Jane didn't bother trying to inflict her pain upon anyone at all. She knew Bella would shut her down without much effort, and swiftly.

Bella, in turn, was also extremely wary about using her talent. She didn't want to give the Volturi any more of a reason to want her. But hard as she tried, the damage was done. They were each already captivated with her, in their own way, her magnificent powers, her charming demeanor, her brilliant smile, beautiful laugh, or lovely little frame had caught them all in a strange way. It was only my brothers and father who, of the males present in our home, could resist thinking of her.

She was beautiful, beyond that even. I had not the words for what she was. But whatever was inside her that made her so unspeakably striking also drew notice I was not fond of.

While the thoughts began simply at simple admiration, it spanned all the way to something close to stalker-like obsession. While I acknowledged my own obsession with her, I also knew that mine was of a different caliber, and was not completely inappropriate. I did not fantasize about chasing her down and having her in any way I so desired. When I truly became fixated on her it was because I was already in love with her, so much so that there was nothing I could do but focus entirely on her until my skin came into contact with hers once more. The thoughts that exuded from the males in the room made me want to retch. She was not an object to be ogled or craved, nor was she simply a thing used for the satisfaction or entertainment of any creature. She was a woman, the woman I loved. It was quite possessively that I mucked through the thoughts that circled the room about my gorgeous and incredible mate.

Most of the guard were unabashedly and disgustingly explicit and inappropriate. Felix and Demetri were the most egregiously unspeakable, images and words in their minds that I could hardly bear to hear, let alone ever try and remember. Alec was far more calculating and cool; he was detached in a way his fellow guards were not. He admired her for her beauty and also for the strength he could feel in her, but was not as tempted as his comrades. Jane, of course, despised her and wished to be rid of her as soon as possible so she could regain her seat as the favorite.

Caius was trying his hardest not to desire her in any way, but when she smiled or laughed he felt an unholy tug in his body that made him _want_ her so badly he could hardly understand what was happening to him. She was like a siren—a creature right out of myth—calling to him as though he was Odysseus himself.

Marcus was showing a noble amount of restraint when it came to Bella. She was gorgeous, true, powerful and radiant in a way no being should be, if only for the sake of the sanity of the rest of the world. He knew this, acknowledged and accepted the fact that he was drawn to her in a way he shouldn't be. But because of his odd power, he also knew that she loved me, wanted me like she wanted no one else and that I felt the same way about her. This fact was the reason that even in his wildest of fantasies, she would never want him in any way, and his mind never strayed beyond admiration.

I was silently thanking him for this, mentally uttering gratitude for his ability to control his mind in the presence of someone he knew was able to read his thoughts. I remembered the reverence with which he treated her, even as she appeared dead. Of all the Volturi, though I was not overly fond of _any_ of them, he was the most tolerable.

And yet for all the restraint Marcus had, Aro showed none. He seemed almost too happy to think about her, ruminate not only on every aspect of her physical attractiveness, but also that of her potential as a vampire. If there were a way he could have her, use her for his own purposes, he would do whatever it took. There was a sort of sick desperation in the way he focused on her, determined to make her want to join his ranks and become part of the group he had housed in Volterra.

If I had my way, she would not go anywhere near that place. She did not need to be tainted by such malevolent disregard for life. Her purity and innocence were already infected with the disease of vampirism, and there was no reason to make her experience murder and watch as killers took life after life with utter indifference.

Of course, she knew none of this. She was blind to their thoughts, as was everyone else but me, and with Bella's ability to strengthen my mind reading, even though she was attempting to control and dampen it, I could hear them all with perfect clarity, unbrokenly.

I wanted to tell her everything, to explain what was coming, what Aro was going to attempt to do through slow suggestion, but I simply couldn't, not with them around to hear me. We needed to go somewhere private, somewhere we could finally, blessedly be alone like we _still_ hadn't gotten a chance to. I was increasingly concerned with the danger I felt brewing behind the smiles and charm of the Volturi.

Aro, at the very least, was planning something. I could feel it in the way he watched her, but mostly in how guarded he was in his thinking lately. I knew there was something coming, I just didn't know what. I had no doubt that, if they deemed it necessary to take some of us out of the picture in order to attain Bella and pull her into their ranks, they would do it. I feared that almost more than anything; my poor Bella alone, without her family, without anyone who loved her, trapped with the Volturi.

The tension eased only slightly when Caius announced that they were going to be gone for an afternoon.

"We need to feed," he said early one morning, "And I am sure that you would prefer we do not do so near your home. We will return this evening." They intentionally left Felix and Jane behind to keep an eye on things while they were absent, but the presence was muted compared to what it had been before with so many of them in my home. I spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out what my next step should be in such a short window of time, while Bella and Alice were busy having a 'girls only' day pampering each other with useless, ridiculous things like pedicures.

But it was Esme, of all people, who told me what to do when I was unsure of how to proceed and keep Bella safe now that an opportunity had arisen to finally act.

"You know, Edward," she said as she was bustling about the house, straightening things obsessively, as she had been recently. When she was nervous she always cleaned fanatically. "I am sure that Bella is tired of deer. Why don't you take her a little farther out, let her find bigger, more satisfying prey? I think the rest of us can hold things down here for a while. Take a day or two."

I looked at her curiously for a moment.

_Go _now_. I won't tell anyone. Take Bella right now and disappear. They won't notice you've gone until you're already too far away. I will tell them I don't know where you went. I know Bella can shut down Demetri's ability, and he won't be able to find you. Just leave. We will come for you when things are settled down. Alice will know where to look._

"That is a good idea, Esme. I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps we will," I replied, as if to her comment about the hunting, which seemed so insignificant now. I didn't like the idea of running, but what other choice did I have in order to keep Bella out of danger? I had to keep this conversational front to make sure neither Felix nor Jane knew what we were doing, and that no one else in the family would know what was happening and could be punished. I mouthed thank you to Esme, who nodded and smiled at me in her motherly, protective, loving way.

I tried my best to seem normal as I passed Felix going up the stairs. He thought nothing suspicious as I walked by him and I breathed a sigh of relief. I went straight up to Alice's room. When I got there, I had expected Bella to be in a bathrobe, getting her toenails painted while she and Alice talked about nothing important. Alice had told me it would be a good idea to let Bella have a day free of stress, and I couldn't have agreed more. She and been so frazzled for the past few days as things had been steadily becoming stranger and more tense with the knowledge of her gift and the rising obsession with her in the house. I'd told Alice she was free to capture Bella for the day while I did other things. Bella had shot me a glare, knowing she wasn't going to enjoy being painted and made up, but I promised her I would rescue her later.

I hadn't meant it to be so soon though, and I thought for sure when I did, she would need to change and we would have to leave with paint still drying on her toes and maybe even curlers in her hair. But she was dressed in a normal outfit, her hair swept back into a low ponytail against her neck, looking like she was expecting this.

_Take her and go, _Alice thought as she put several untraceable credit cards, various IDs, and a wad of hundred dollar bills into a wallet,_ I will find you. Things are…going to be fine. She understands what is happening. And with her little talent I was able to see…further into the future than before. Things are a little more exact. But the Volturi are coming back soon. They cut the hunting trip short. Go north, and then out of the country. Bella can handle Demetri, and I'll stop looking for you once I know you're safely away. I don't know anything definite, and Aro won't be a problem._

"So you think there will be enough prey for Bella and I north? No surprises?" I inquired, trying to make this conversation seem real and communicate the things I needed to at the same time.

_Not so far as I can see. Let Bella help you hear things, if you need to…listen for me every once in a while. If anything changes or there is an emergency, I will find a way to contact you._ I exchanged wallets with her, so that Alice could throw mine somewhere in the living room, making it seem like we intended to return and thus give us a few extra hours to escape. She gave us both a brief hug, and disappeared through the door.

I looked at Bella, who extended her hand to me. We walked down the stairs slowly, talking about hunting, and how excited she was to try and hunt something that might actually pose a challenge to her.

"Where do you think you are going?" Jane asked. I looked at her casually.

"Bella needs to hunt," I said easily, "She has been subsisting on deer for weeks. She needs something more filling. We wont be gone more than a few hours." I had become an accomplished liar over the many years I had been a vampire, needing to lie almost constantly amidst the human population.

"Aro won't like it," she said sourly, as if just saying his name annoyed her now. I could see it truly did. She didn't like having fallen out of favor with him, and she certainly didn't approve of his obsession with Bella.

"Oh, think for yourself for a moment, will you please, Jane?" Bella drawled, plainly condescending, "He won't even find out. We will beat them home and you can pretend you didn't even know we were gone." Her voice was nothing short of annoyed. Jane glared at her and Bella raised a challenging eyebrow. She pursed her lips in anger, murderous thoughts racing through her mind.

"Fine. Be back before they are," she warned us. If only she knew we meant to not come back at all, to run while there was time. I hoped that disappearing for a while would ebb Aro's fascination with her, make him realize he was satisfied with the abilities that each of his followers had on their own, and understand that his guard was complete. I didn't like to run away; I wasn't one for being a coward, but in this case it wasn't cowardice I was submitting to, it was the knowledge that Bella's safety was more important than my pride.

So, with Jane taken care of, and a flimsy alibi in place, Bella and I went out the front door, hand in hand.

We ran like our lives depended on it.

I prayed they didn't.


End file.
